Agreement and Disputation
by KCS
Summary: -"Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking." -George Eliot. A budding friendship, seen through the private diary of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Sequel to Worth & Choice.
1. July 1, 1881

_July 1, 1881_

_8:55 p.m._

Halloa, this is a monumental night indeed! After three months without it (though granted, I cannot say I was missing it terribly), I finally located this scribble-book. It had fallen behind my desk, and I only just discovered it when we were forced into a rather speedy move of the furniture because of my accidentally setting the curtains afire. (Enter Panic in the form of an affronted landlady.)

Mrs. Hudson was not happy that I was more animated about locating the book – not out of some repulsive schoolgirlish desire to maintain a diary, but more because that meant the Doctor had not discovered it and been sneaking peeks at it – than I was remorseful about the burnt drapes, but I have no doubt the woman shall eventually forgive my apparently Unforgivable Transgression.

How was I to know the match I dropped on the newspapers was still smoking? I was discussing this Breston robbery with Watson, and therefore not paying attention to trifling matters. Surely my (admittedly rare) attempts at civil conversation would warrant a bit of absolution for my absent-mindedness? This is the thanks I receive for going out of my way to converse with my fellow man. Honestly.

All the same, I should have been more prudent to wait until after dinner for the experiment in patience-stretching, as neither I nor the Doctor like burnt pudding. Now he is annoyed with me as well as with the formidable woman downstairs, who is in turn irritated with my supposed carelessness, which then floods me with frustration aimed at the world in general; _circulus vitiosus_.

As the Doctor has been a bit under the weather in this heat wave as it is, further provocation of his short temper was not an overly intelligent move on my part. Bull-pups may be small but they can still gnaw a man's ankle to shreds; I should know.

One would think that I should have learnt more discretion by now, after nearly six months of adapting to having another person about continuously, but Mycroft always did allege that I was a slow learner in anything other than mathematics and chemistry. Not so; I merely believe in methodically taking my time while applying myself to something, to decide if said something is truly worth learning completely, and more importantly worth allowing to occupy valuable space in my orderly brain-attic.

This puzzling little problem of _companionship_, I am yet ambivalent about.

Which, unfortunately, could pose a problem, as in six days we shall come to something of a smallish crisis. When I first embarked upon a quest for a flat-mate and located this chap I have come to live with at present, we agreed upon six months of testing the waters of arrangements (frankly I did not expect him to tolerate me more than a sennight, and am still puzzled by his evident fascination with me and his fountain of patience that no caustic sponge I wield seems to be able to soak dry).

That six months expires next Thursday, and he has said a conspicuous nothing about the matter of renewing the lease upon the flat. Or of dropping said lease, for that matter, though I would certainly hope he would leave me with no fair warning like that for the entirety of the rent.

I would think he has forgotten the dates, were it not for the fact that the fellow has one of the most brilliant memories I have ever come across. He cannot deduce worth anything, it is quite true – but he can certainly observe and recall, and the quality has been valuable more than once to me already since I have known him.

But I digress – the point is, I cannot decide if he has forgotten the fact of the lease's expiration, or if he merely does not wish to discuss the affair for some unfathomable reason (and I certainly am not about to bring the matter up, thank you very much). I am well aware that he has been working steadily at various hospitals and practices about the capital, building a rapport with medicos in the field and saving money for when his pension will begin to taper; but whether his plans include staying on here or departing for greener pastures I have yet to ascertain, for all my powers.

One of his more disconcerting qualities – I cannot sound his depths despite all my best efforts unless he permits me to do so. I am yet in doubt whether to be fascinated by the fact or frustrated to the point of informing him he is coming close to pushing me over the already-too-close line of insanity due to his infernal infuriation of my orderly mind.

But enough of the melodrama. In other news, London is sweltering in a heat wave, the like of which I hope to never endure again; the type of humid, blistering temperature that can fairly boil a man alive in his sleep and burn anyone of less-than-tanned skin within moments of stepping out onto the pavement. I am quite glad for my hat-brims, as I am pale by nature and do not appear at all dignified with a conspicuously scaly, scarlet nose.

Whether the sauna is driving the London criminal underground to cool damp cellars for latent counterfeiting, or if it is simply melting the evil-doers into so many dried-up puddles of boring humanity, I have no idea – but either way, the city is as dull and lifeless as it is during the rainy season, when all men are good for is to stand about in front of picture-windows, glaring at the world and talking aimlessly about societal inanities over their cigars and cognac. Bah.

It has been over a week since a crime of any consequence was committed, and only this last robbery of the morning's florid gutter-press showed any points of interest – and those precious few; even Gregson could see through the nobleman's bluff regarding his supposedly "stolen" emerald-studded opera-glasses.

I must say, despite my repugnance of the country, it would be jolly decent of Fate to bring me a client who lived in the North, or in Brighton…or Ireland…or for that matter _Iceland_ – anywhere less torrid than London is at the moment. All that smiling, potentially explosive countryside, and no tragedy has decided to strike with the advantage of a sleepy, complacent populace melting of heatstroke. What better opportunity is the English criminal waiting for to begin wreaking his havoc, Armageddon?

The world would be in more danger than any double agent has ever caused for my brother, were I to turn my talents toward crime rather than detection. Granted, my profession would lose its most brilliant practitioner, and the mantle of scientific deduction would fall into the incapable hands of these poor mortals, but then again the price one pays for _bel esprit_ in any field carries with it its own necessary sacrifices.

Ah, it sounds as if Watson has succeeded in calming Mrs. Hudson; bless the dear chap, I wonder if he has managed to inveigle a less-than-crispy pudding for us?


	2. July 2, 1881

_July 2, 1881_

_11:58 p.m._

The Bard's _Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?_ might possibly not have been the compliment it seemed in the drama, methinks. It is simply too scorching hot. There are no words to describe the atmosphere, both of the weather and the dearth of activity because of it.

Have I yet mentioned in these scattered scribblings of mine that I intensely dislike altering my habits? Granted, not to the extent where I become a crotchety recluse like my elder brother (honestly, were it not that he worships food more than religion, he would have made a fine monk), but even so, I am a creature of habit and I dislike aberrance of routine with every fibre of my organised soul.

When said routine must be altered because of another man's infernal bull-headedness, that lovely addition only compounds the problem. I should be sleeping the sleep of the just by this time of night, not sitting awake in my bed and scribbling aimlessly because I cannot seem to bring my mind down to at least a semi-comatose state.

I was out all day today; Lestrade got in over his head in an absurdly simple silver robbery over Hampstead way and wished my expertise on the matter. The sun melted practically everything that was not frozen solid to begin with, and I returned home in the evening rather out-of-sorts, I will freely acknowledge. Frankly, I believe I am more than entitled to be so, between the heat and being forced to imbibe every bit of Yard gossip that infernal little man could possibly dredge up from his conscious and sub-conscious mind (if he even _possesses_ one, which I sometimes doubt – and with good cause).

I returned home to find Mrs. Hudson preparing to verbally assault me for being late for supper (how in the world that woman can go from seriously considering bashing me over the head with a silver-tray one evening and fussing as if she were my sainted mother the next is beyond me). I managed to fend both her and the dinner off until I had shed my coat and cravat, for the interior of the house was scarcely less stifling than the out-of-doors despite the sun's preparing to set.

I was mildly surprised to note that the Doctor had not yet returned from that clinic in the East End in which he has been volunteering his services this week (I could tell from the debris accumulated upon his trousers and shoes, not from anything he said; sometimes I speculate if he purposely withholds information just for the sake of driving me to distraction), but as Mrs. Hudson was flurrying about like a hen rounding up a young brood, and as I had no desire to offend the good woman for the second time in as many days, I ate; quite thoroughly, and promptly laid compliments upon the meal with the metaphorical trowel, until unfortunately she perceived I was merely blathering for the sake of smoothing her ruffled feathers.

Women. How can one interact with such a quicksand?

I then set about to organise my scrapbooks (a Sisyphean task if ever I saw one) for the next few hours. Around eight I heard the Doctor return, and was slightly bemused to perceive him poke his head in the room, brusquely inform me that he did not feel well and was going to bed, could I please refrain from using my violin as an instrument of torture tonight, thank you Holmes, good-night, etc., etc. And then he limped up the stairs, where I heard nary a sound for the next three hours.

I was not offended but rather amused at his quite candid opinion of my midnight solos; only rarely does one recognise talented genius and they do say that familiarity breeds contempt. He is still learning, at any rate, and coming along nicely I might add.

My amusement faded, however, when around eleven I was preparing to go to bed and some unfathomable instinct or feeling told me to pop up the stairs and check upon him, for he had not sounded quite right those three hours prior. I use the term _feeling_ loosely; for it was mere common sense, not some ludicrous emotional response. He had said he was not feeling well; and in fact, I well knew what the East End could bestow upon a man by way of infection and illness. If he were contagious I should need to know, so as to quit the house for the duration of his quarantine.

Quite logical, actually, though I hardly thought it was necessary for my feet to automatically take the steps two at a time, especially since the closer I drew to the third floor the more stifling it became. Strange what things the body does when the brain is disengaged for a moment. I really should do a monograph upon the reflexes of the body and their relations to everyday logic and activity…

As it happens, it was a rather Providential thing that I did go up, because his room was hot and sticky enough to boil a man alive in his own perspiration; even though he had had the sense to open the window, no wind was evident in this summer night and it made no difference to the temperature.

I was properly horrified, for the small bedroom was approaching the atmosphere of a Turkish bath – and if he was going to steam himself to death he was not going to do it in _my_ house. It is bad for business to have one's fellow-lodger die in his bed, and rumours do spread among both the criminal classes and the clients. It simply would not do.

Besides, I had not the time to deal with the formalities, nor did I wish to be stuck with the entirety of the rent. There are easier ways to get out of paying a lease, and that is what I intend to tell him first thing tomorrow morning, if he is feeling lucid enough to listen to me.

But I leap ahead in my already-desultory narrative.

I opened the door and was immediately assaulted by a sweltering wave of heat that sparked the thought that the room might be afire. This was not the case, though frankly I am not certain it would have changed the temperature many degrees.

As I lit the gas to drive back the humid darkness, I saw that my idiotic fellow-lodger was curled upon his bed in his shirt-sleeves and trousers, the coverlet trailing on the floor along with his discarded jacket, his face half-pressed against the relative coolness of the pillow and his hair plastered down upon his head with perspiration. As I walked (I did not feel that his foolhardiness in remaining in such a sauna warranted the courtesy of asking permission for entry) into the room his flushed face twitched and his eyes opened fuzzily; he was not asleep as I had thought from his rather heavy breathing.

"What in heaven's name are you trying to do?" I demanded with beautiful directness, for there was no reason to coddle the man.

"Sleep," was the hazily murmured answer. "Go _away_."

I raised an amused eyebrow, for only rarely was he this testy; and usually only if I woke him before nine of a morning by various and sundry methods that included but were not limited to firing off my revolver in my bedroom or the sitting-room.

"It's too hot up here," I pointed out the obvious for his half-fevered benefit. "You're going to get heatstroke."

A doctor should know this, naturally, but I was good enough to not point out his shortcoming to him. I had fallen under heatstroke more than once, and it was always one of the most unpleasant of experiences I have ever endured, other than being forced to sit through a Scotland Yard press conference or have a seven-course luncheon with my brother at the Diogenes.

"Little late for that," I was…_dismayed_, I suppose is the word to describe the feeling, to hear next.

"What?"

He rolled over onto his back, brushing damp hair out of the way to fix me with a weak version of that formidable glare he possesses in his arsenal of defense against my onslaughts. "If you are just going to stand there staring and interrogate me, I should prefer you _stop_."

I frowned, for the novelty of his unusual grumpiness was fast dissipating at how wretchedly miserable he looked. I caught his small desk chair with my foot and drew it up, seating myself in it despite his forbidding scowl. "In all seriousness, Doctor, are you truly ill? I thought you were quite used to the heat, all things considered."

Indeed, he was far more hardened to high temperature than I; when we had first shared these rooms back in January he had nearly frozen to death many times and was cold even when I was quite comfortable, being so used to the deserts of Afghanistan and the humidity of India.

"I _am_," he sighed, rubbing a sleeve over his damp forehead and blinking up at me. "But _anyone_ might get sick, walking all the way from Aldgate in this heat two days in succession."

"You what?" This time it was my turn to glare. "Are you mad? It had to have taken you hours!"

"Why d'you think I was late today?"

"Why didn't you take a cab, or at least a 'bus?" I demanded.

"I didn't have any money on me," he snapped with undeserved crossness, and curled up in a miserable ball, closing his eyes with a grimace.

By this point I could barely breathe in the airless atmosphere, and despite his pig-headedness (would never admit it) I knew he probably could not either. "Look, you need to get out of this room," I ventured reasonably, loosening my collar-ends. "It's hot as blazes in here, and that can't possibly help you feel better."

"One symptom of heatstroke is marked dizziness," he muttered with a stubborn sigh. "I had a hard enough time coming _up_ those stairs."

Was that his only reason? Honestly, the man can be so positively _dense_ at times. Or obstinate, one or the other.

"I'll help you, but you need to get out of this oven," I offered sensibly (at least one of us was being so!). "Come now; it's at least ten degrees cooler downstairs."

"I am perfectly fine, Holmes!" he growled, squeezing his eyes shut in abject contradiction to his words and laying a shaking hand against his forehead.

"Watson, that is the stupidest thing I have heard from you in quite some time," I snorted, taking hold of his arm (much against his will, as he swore testily at me and tried to yank away; naturally I am far stronger and would not allow him) and more hauling than helping him up into a vertical position.

He swayed dizzily for an instant and then regained his balance (nearly taking me with him crashing to the floor as he clutched my arm), but somehow we made it down the stairs without calamity, where I settled him on the settee in the sitting room. He was obviously relieved at the difference in temperature, and finally thanked me for my help (and about time, too). I fetched him some water, and upon my awkwardly inquiring if I could do anything else he shook his head vaguely and fell asleep soon after, looking marginally less miserable than he had before at least. And last I checked ten minutes ago, he was still sleeping. Small favours.

I left a window open and then retired myself, but I find myself powerless to sleep at the moment; hence the aimless, pointless scribbling in this journal. I wonder why the man had no money upon him; by now his clothing has lost any traces that might have told me the reason for his walking nearly two-and-a-half hours in that sweltering heat, yesterday and today as well.

I do hope he is not saving every penny he makes so that he is able to locate other accommodations…merely because I do not wish to have to acclimate myself to yet another fellow-lodger, naturally. That transition would certainly be both problematic and inconvenient.

Besides, I doubt I could _find_ another man who would not mind my nicking his phial of carbolic acid to preserve the poisoned fish-head I need to finish experimenting upon tomorrow…or who would tolerate my inadvertently leaving an ice-pick on his armchair, for that matter. That incident was far too painful (no pun intended) for me to ever trust to the pages of this scribble-book for posterity's sake.

These thoughts of mine, hoping that his lack of available funds is merely an oversight on his part and not a portion of a greater scheme to leave Baker Street for his own quarters, are simply a matter of practicality, of course.

Perfectly logical in every way.


	3. July 3, 1881

_July 3, 1881_

_2:17 p.m._

Having been kept up well past two in the morning by forces beyond my control (or beyond my _comprehension_, for that matter), I therefore felt more than justified in sleeping late this morning, and rose only when the aroma of fresh coffee became sufficiently pungent to dissipate the fog that encompassed and muted the processes of my brain.

I found Mrs. Hudson fluttering about with cups and plates and pitchers and cloths and heaven only knew _what_ else, turning the placid sitting room into a precise semblance of Victoria Station just before the Continental Express is due to pull out of a typical Friday morning.

The Doctor was still reclined upon the sofa, a cold cloth upon his face and a bowl of cool water in dangerous proximity to the foot-path around the settee; I nearly trod right into the vessel when I stumbled in, rubbing the grit of sleep from my eyes.

Our estimable landlady shot me a _look,_ clearly screeching that it was about time I took a turn playing nursemaid – for Watson's sake, I shall never try anything of the kind – and swept from the room with the dirty dishes, leaving me an egg and some buttered toast which I half-heartedly chewed on as I stuffed my first pipe for the morning.

"Honestly, can't you wait a quarter of an hour at least, after you get up, to begin filling your lungs with that stuff?" a half-amused, half serious voice sent my thoughts scattering about like so many pieces of confetti a moment later. "It's hardly healthy."

I glanced over the bowl of my sacred mouthpiece, a match half-way to igniting the leaves. "If you are worried about the hazards to _your_ health, I can go back to my bedroom, Doctor. If mine, I am more than willing to take the risk."

"'S your funeral," he muttered, though the faintness of his voice rather detracted from the humour at hearing a medical man speak so dismissively of the Force that he fought daily for his patients' lives.

I yelped as the forgotten match burnt my fingers, and hastily tossed it into the grate (_not_ into the pile of newsprint awaiting my perusal; yes I _do_ learn from my mistakes, thank you). "Feeling any better?"

One hazel eye opened with a familiar glint of slight mischief, and I became instantly wary. "Not much since the last time you came out to check, Holmes. No, don't bother to deny it, m'dear fellow; I wasn't asleep. Or the time before, or the one before that."

I sputtered for a moment and finally stuffed my unlit pipe into my mouth before melting back into my armchair, hoping he would drop the whole matter. Hmph, he had looked sound asleep to me. Devious chap, that.

I opened the _Daily Telegraph_ to hide the sight of his infernal half-smirk and proceeded to completely ignore both him and Mrs. Hudson for the next hour and a half. That is, until the latter impatiently waved a letter between my nose and the paper and dropped it in my lap when I growled at her to leave me alone. I duly noted, docketed, and ignored both her miffed response and the Doctor's reproving eyebrow, and after glancing at the address (which I did not recognise) tossed the missive into the pile at my elbow, to be sorted once I was finished with the agony columns.

It was only after I had blithely ripped from the society news an article that I wished to keep for my scrapbooks, that I guiltily realised I might not be the only one who wished to read the rags.

"Erm…Doctor, will you be wanting to read any of these this morning?" I inquired, hoping to the negative.

The peace of the room rippled after a slight pause, as he stirred and then removed the wet cloth, blinking slowly at me. "What?"

I lowered the paper, frowning at his not-entirely-lucid tone. "Never mind, Doctor; my apologies. It was not that important." I shook my head in reassurance and watched as his eyes slowly fluttered closed again, the cloth falling forgotten to thunk wetly into the water-bowl.

I was not about to have Mrs. Hudson berating me for negligence regarding the man's care; even I am not so foolhardy as to walk knowingly into a suicide venture. I stood, flung the paper over into the _To sort_ pile, and flicked the crust of my toast into the fireplace, only then realising that of course there was no fire lit, it being close to scorching in temperature already. Ah well. Then I brushed the crumbs off my trousers and scooped the washrag back up, wringing it out and trying awkwardly to re-position it on the Doctor's brow so that it would not plunge into a watery resting-place again (one retrieval was _certainly_ enough effort to expend in the matter, surely!).

I received no audible thanks for my efforts, but then again I was not even certain if he were entirely mindful, what with the fever and illness, and so did not fault the man for his uncharacteristic negligence.

Rather pleased with myself and my modest morning's accomplishments, I then spent the rest of said morning sorting and answering the post that had piled up recently and trying (with no great success, unfortunately) to find the Betterton gang burglary file from '77. I am entirely unable to locate it anywhere, blast the thing (I hope I did not accidentally put it into my apparently bottomless trunk with the older case notes, as it could be years before I find it again), and I am quite certain that this new Grandet trio of armed robbers is following along the same lines. Naturally I cannot convince Lestrade or any of those other idiots at the Yard that history does indeed repeat itself, and so must have concrete, black-and-white proof of what I say, when my word ought to be proof enough.

In all seriousness, one would think that those dunderheads would, after scores of cases in which I have most patiently demonstrated the sound mental processes of logic and deduction, finally recognise the genius of this my self-made profession. But no, they insist upon the old ways and the old idiocy, and so ignore the more effective world simply imploring to be explored, were they to only use their eyes and whatever brains (or lack thereof, in certain cases) with which heaven has seen fit to endow them.

The result? They receive accolades such as the simpering claptrap in the _Times_ this morning, congratulating one or the other (I cannot recall which, nor do I much care) on a triumphant conclusion to a three-week case which should have taken _me_ only five hours at the maximum to complete and capture the villain involved.

And _I_ am relegated to a single line of print, if that, in any account where I work them from off-stage like the blank marionettes they are; and am labeled as a "queer eccentric who has shown occasional promise in the field" by all and sundry, in the police world or any other. _Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fui (1)_, indeed, but I daresay I am closer to complete sanity and control of my mind than any of these mortals around me ever shall approach unto.

And while I am digressing into side discussions here, an issue that a rather mordant remark of Gregson's brought to mind recently: surely my habits are not all _that_ extraordinary as men would like to make out? I am well aware that I have a few eccentricities that apparently stun the majority of the proper and stolidly traditional world, but then we all are to some extent mad in some way or another, are we not?

That is another excellent quality of Watson's – he apparently either tolerates or truly does not mind my more glaring deficiencies in social matters and the apparent "standard" courtesies that occasionally escape my attention (due to their utter irrelevance to my work, naturally).

And I _do_ wish he would hurry it up and get over this illness, as we simply must discuss the issue of the lease upon these rooms. Mrs. Hudson has been eyeing me skeptically (more so than usual), as if she knows something I do not and is not about to tell me what the matter is.

I do not trust that woman. Nor any woman, for that matter, but that is a topic for another entry in this _Journalings of a To-Some-Extent Mad-man_.

* * *

(1) _Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fui – There has been no great wisdom without an element of madness._


	4. July 4, 1881

_July 4, 1881_

_10:28 a.m._

Why is it that, on mornings when I desire a bit of peace and quiet in which to sort, categorise, and store my thoughts, I invariably attract the most absurd and garrulous of traveling companions? In the twenty-three minutes since I have left Euston Station, I have been waylaid by at least four different people in varying stages of sociability, of the most annoying sort. I finally retreated from both the dining car and my former compartment to a smoking car and proceeded to choke it with a thick enough haze that no one has dared to enter yet.

And at last, I am bequested a bit of time to myself, to spend in an endeavour to make clear to my puzzled mind the odd events of the morning.

I had dressed for the day – such a scorcher of a morning that my collar had begun to wilt within ten minutes of my fastening it – and was opening a telegram, delivered from my brother, when I suddenly registered that the Doctor was fast asleep on the settee. I had been making something of a racket, and he is a light sleeper as I well know; therefore I was quite relieved that I had not managed to waken him in my puttering about with miscellanea.

Speaking of _meus frater_, Mycroft is, understandably, quite upset over the American Presidential assassination attempt (1); it is still being termed an attempt, as Mr. Garfield is at present still alive, though the situation does not look promising. Brother mine is in a dither about the effect of the attempt upon the colonial morale, on this their Independence Day. From what I have learnt of the Americans, however, I seriously doubt he has cause enough to worry. They are a hardy people, as their history shows – a fact which I will admit with no animosity whatsoever, unlike some of my more bitter countrymen. Such a crime as this assassination is most certainly regrettable, and no country deserves to be so deprived of its leader in so inglorious a fashion; but there is little my brother can do, it not bearing much upon the States' relations with England.

But it is proof positive of my intensely scattered mental state that I am capable of digressing so far as to scribble aimlessly in a personal journal about my brother's political problems. Back to the topic at hand, then.

The telegram being duly read and my answer (simply that no, I could not be bothered to stop by Whitehall and bring him a large luncheon, whereupon we would discuss some trifling matter in connection with my proposed admittance to the Diogenes Club) sent, I then proceeded to open the rest of the post which had accumulated of late, carefully tacking the bills and other important documents to the mantel with my jack-knife in my usual neat and precise fashion.

Mrs. Hudson was just bringing up a pot of coffee, and I opening a letter with a flagrantly ostensible crest adorning and sealing it, when Watson stirred uneasily, blinking himself awake at last. He'd been up only once in the night, if my ears did not deceive me (I had no desire to further embarrass myself by going out to check), and looked a bit more like himself when he finally yawned and sat up. At the least, he no longer looked an advertisement for the stuff that death is made on. Much improved, in other words.

I ventured a chirpy "_Good_ morning" from behind my letter and received a most cross grunt for my trouble, which fact amused me greatly. I immediately moved onward to questioning him on how he felt – this is the obligatory conversation with a convalescing person, is it not? – and was told in no uncertain terms to "give a chap a moment to come awake before interrogating him!"

I do _so_ love being annoying – especially on such an opponent whose patience either has no limits, or at least only has limits that stretch to accommodate me in particular.

I grinned most annoyingly and returned to reading my letter; a summons from a client of rather high standing, an old friend of a mutual university acquaintance. This in itself is scarcely more than unutterably dull, but his case presented a few interesting features. And, for that matter, I am forced to accept any item that may come my way, as I have no idea whether or not in four days I shall be forced to enburden my finances with the weight of an entire room and boarding, rather than my usual half of such.

I heard the creaking of furniture, and then an outraged squawk from Mrs. Hudson over the Doctor's evident desire to get off the settee for a few moments. I allowed the ensuing fracas to run its course and completely perused my letter, scribbled a reply telegram, and then calmly poured myself a cup of coffee and watched the tempest sweep out of the room, leaving one very chagrined young soldier staring after her in wide-eyed discomfiture.

"My word," he breathed at last, as I attempted to hide my near-snickering. "She would make a perfectly dreadful head nurse."

"But an effective one," I pointed out as he tentatively tried standing and turned an interesting shade of grey, hastily resuming his position on the couch. "Think you can keep coffee down this morning?"

"I believe so," he sighed, nodding gratefully. "Certainly I am feeling much improved."

"That is as well, for I must leave you for a few days; I have been sent for from a small village near Harwich. Here." He took the cup and I saw a pleased smile that I had remembered he did not like it overly sweetened when his stomach was uneasy (how I learned that interesting fact is a rather unpleasant tale, and one I shall not here share). "I shall be leaving in less than an hour," I called over my shoulder as I moved about, gathering items for my carpet-bag.

"A case?"

"Something of one, though it seems to present no great difficulty in solution." I tossed the items on the table and pulled my carpetbag from behind my bedroom door. "Would you inform anyone who calls that I shall be away for a few days, hopefully no more than a week?"

He nodded tiredly and set the half-empty cup down upon the floor, carefully out of the way of my rushing feet. I was not easy in my mind regarding the fact that he obviously was still unwell. And – this is the most astounding thing of all, a confounding sensation that I have not felt in quite a long time – the absurd notion did actually flit across my mind, so rapidly I barely registered it but it was there all the same; the thought that perhaps I should postpone the trip until I was assured that he could at least walk about without keeling over.

Rubbish; the man is a doctor, and a good one. There was absolutely no logical reason for my mind to conjure up such an absurd situation, and the fact troubles me to a great extent.

Perhaps it was that unusual thought and the more unusual wonderment at it, that caused me to pause in my packing and look at him as he reclined listlessly back upon the sofa, watching me in lethargy. "Doctor, are you quite certain you will be all right? Mrs. Hudson will not be able to hear you unless you shout…"

He waved his hand with a weak smile. "Perfectly fine, Holmes. I say, you'd best hurry, hadn't you, if you're to catch the 10:05 from Euston?"

I dropped my magnifying lens, as he had once again employed that bizarre power of distracting me by surprise attacks upon my unsuspecting habits. "I do not believe I stated which train I would take, Doctor," observed I in annoyance.

"No more you did," he agreed cheerfully. "But I've taken to studying the Bradshaw timetables for a while now (2) – that's how bored I was last spring when the weather trapped me inside here, you know."

"If you will pardon my frankness, Watson, really you need to find a hobby," I told him seriously. "Besides taking stock of all my shortcomings in various areas such as literature and philosophy, I mean."

I smirked in satisfaction as his pale face suffused with a dark red of mortification, though it faded slightly when I could not restrain a laugh at his expense. "Well," I called at last, darting into my room for my hat, "I must run, in that case."

I returned to the sitting room and brushed a thin layer of dust off the cloth cap, and then checked my pockets for my pipe and tobacco-pouch. The latter I had absent-mindedly filled with scraps of waxed paper for one of my experiments last week, and I was forced to empty the contents into an accomodating tea-cup before refilling it with the proper shag.

Finally I was donning my coat, and noticed that my fellow-lodger was still watching me, somewhat dismally. Could it possibly be that he actually _enjoys_ having my companionship around the place, and was not anticipating my departure as a welcome chance for some solitary peace and quiet? It is a highly improbable notion, but I am at a loss to explain the expression upon his features by some other hypothesis. Strange.

"You're quite certain you will be all right?" I asked once more as I lifted my bag, making certain I had my keys.

He nodded wearily reached for a discarded newspaper. I was unconvinced, but I did have a train to catch and so would simply need to trust that Mrs. Hudson would not allow the stubborn fool to over-exert himself again. Nurse-maid I am not, and never will be.

"Very well then; I shall be back within the week. Refrain from dying whilst I am away, do? It is horribly bad for business to have one's fellow-lodger expire in the sitting-room where he receives clients." In the absence of knowing what in the world to say to the poor fellow, I strove for levity and I am afraid only succeded in sounding rather ludicrous.

However, the trifle elicited a slow smile and a tolerant wave, so perhaps I am wrong in that respect. "Yes, yes, yes – I shall miss you too, my dear fellow. Now go on, or you shan't make that train."

I closed my mouth, which had unaccountably dropped at his bizarre choice of words – and his peculiar and entirely unfounded belief that I might _miss_ him – and bolted for the door to hide my growing unease.

And so here I sit in a smoke-filled railway compartment, endeavouring to make sense of the exchange. The fact that an answer is not rapidly forthcoming is both cause for alarm and food for profound thought. By definition, to _miss_ an object means to feel some sense of loss at its absence; therefore, a continuance of that chain of logic would indicate that an attachment must have been made at some point to said object, and that one would not feel entirely at ease until said object is back into place.

I missed my pipe once, for example, when I negligently left it in my coat-pocket last winter before Mrs. Hudson took the article into her apartments to be cleaned. I spent three hours tearing the house apart for the blasted thing, and was bordering on manic distraction before it was recovered.

To say that I were to miss Dr. John Watson would most definitely not be an accurate assessment. I am not running about frantically searching for him or a replacement for him; nor have I formed an attachment to him that might cause me to behave in such an irrational fashion; nor have I any feeling of incompleteness without his presence. No, the entire idea is pure rubbish.

That brings up a most interesting point in this fascinating (if one-sided) discussion: was he intimating that he might truly feel a sense of loss while I am out of the city? And if that were so, firstly – do I like the idea of his becoming so attached to me; and secondly – why in the world _would_ he? Besides the fact that the idea of forming a relationship with this man is entirely unsettling, to say the least, there is also that I – Sherlock Holmes, bizarre and inexplicably eccentric genius – cannot possibly be the sort of man with which a normal person would possess an abnormal desire to strike up a friendship. The very idea is entirely unreasonable.

But I am thoroughly exhausted with attempting to wrap my mind around an unfathomable mystery; there are those conundrums which are too much for even my unmatched intelligence to solve.

And besides this mental weariness, I feel distinctly uneasy about something...the same feeling as occurs when I have missed a vital clue or factor in an abstruse and complicated chain of deduction. Perhaps I should go and read my client's letter again, though I do not really feel so inclined.

What am I missing?

* * *

(1) July 2, 1881 – American President James A. Garfield was shot in the spine at point-blank range by deranged lawyer Charles Julius Guiteau. President Garfield's death of infection, from the wound and poor medical treatment, did not occur until September 19 of that same year.

(2) – This is not Canon-based, but rather my own loving tribute to the genius of Marion Crawford, who played a Bradshaw-memorizing Watson in the 1954 American television series. If you haven't seen the shows, you should.


	5. July 7, 1881

_July 7, 1881_

_6:43 p.m._

I must say, it is rather a wonderful feeling, to walk about in one's own home and sleep in one's own bed (when I shall sleep, that is, which judging from the look of things will not be tonight at any rate). After nearly three interminable days spent in a rural village utterly devoid of civilization beyond the local pub and intelligence beyond the fifteenth century, even a thunderstorm-rattled London was a beautiful sight. I waxed quite poetic about it, actually, upon seeing it in the distance this afternoon – which is why the page preceding this journal entry has been torn out and summarily burnt. Heaven alone knows what I was thinking, but I should never wish anyone to get hold of that flowery claptrap I composed on impulse in that railway carriage.

The case, a mundane, rather routine affair involving the usual vying for inheritance from a dying relative, took on an interesting turn last evening with the poisoning of the family dog, thereby giving me the necessary piece with which to complete the puzzle more swiftly than I had anticipated.

And so, six o'clock this fine inclement evening found me rattling up Baker Street in a hansom, full of good-humour over my triumph and a good fifty pounds in my pocket from an overly grateful client. I am not sure which factor was to blame for my unusual joviality.

At any rate, I tossed my carpetbag down in the hall so that Mrs. Hudson (who, judging from the thumping I could hear from her parlour, was airing out the drapes with a vengeance untold) could retrieve my used collars for the laundry without being forced to mount the stairs, and then took said stairs two at a time in hopes that Watson had fully recovered and might want to go out to dine with me.

And no, it was not out of some preposterous desire for companionship, though I should be glad of at least quasi-intelligent company again – but because tomorrow marks the end of our six-month agreement, and if I were going to test the waters of his plans for the future I should need to put him in as good a temper as possible. Purely a matter of diplomacy – or at least I thought that was all it was, though the puzzling revelations of the last hour have proved somewhat otherwise.

But I leap headlong into the midst of my narrative, rather than laying out events in a logical sequence. I had not reached the top of the steps when the sitting room door opened and the man himself poked his head out into the hall. I was ridiculously pleased, and slightly embarrassed, that his face lit up in delighted surprise.

"Holmes! You said you'd be gone for a week! Oh dear, you are sopping wet from that thunderstorm." I refrained from a dry round of applause at his (extremely obvious) deduction and merely squished my way into the room as he held the door open. "How was the trip?"

"Wet. And dull," I added in an afterthought, shuddering not from chill but from recollection of my loquacious compartment-companion. "I am glad to be home, Watson." I blinked in some astonishment, wondering where that mawkish sentiment had come from, but apparently the Doctor thought nothing more about it.

"I'm glad you are, also," he chirped, and fairly wrenched my dripping coat off my back with an energy that could not possibly be without pain – for I knew well the weather wreaked havoc on his health and by all rights he should be sitting down with his legs propped up on the ottoman. He must truly, _genuinely_ be happy to see me.

And it is testament to my changes in mental state over the last six months that the fact seemed unaccountably to warm me more than the fire he was propelling me toward. Some reparation for undeserved kindness seems to be customary in such circumstances, and I therefore gave it my best effort.

"How are you feeling?"

"Perfectly fit, thank you," he replied, smiling. "The arrival of a thunderstorm the night after you left made the temperature much more bearable. I think I just needed a bit of rest. Would you like a hot drink?"

"Actually, no, Doctor, I…" I began, and then trailed off in a fit of indecision.

Even as the words left my mouth, I had suddenly became wary of offering to share a portion of my case fee by way of paying for dinner; if the man were indeed in financial straits, he might take offense at the gesture. He is without doubt the proudest man I have ever met, more than a match for me in that area, certainly. In addition to this, the thought that tomorrow might be the last time we should share these rooms together, if he were to leave these accommodations, suddenly reared its head with a – I will admit it, yes – frightening hiss of clarity. But as I had paused mid-thought and was currently just standing before the fire looking half-witted, I was forced to continue despite this discomfiting thought.

"Actually, Doctor, I have in my pocket a rather munificent cheque, in addition to the fact that I am ravenous after that elongated railway journey. I was wondering – I was wondering if you should like to go celebrate with me. Dinner and a ramble through Berkeley Square, perhaps?"

My hopeful tone was, I certainly prayed, masked underneath a façade of joviality. Despite my enforced cheerfulness, however, I was well aware of a small amount of unusual tension in the room that had not been there previously – in fact, the existing level of discomfort had not been present since those first few awkward weeks of our association.

My uneasiness only increased with his obvious hesitation to accept my proposal. His pleasure at seeing me suddenly melted into what appeared to be no less than worry and, if I am any judge of human nature (which I certainly am, an infallible one), also fear. Fear of what? Fear of my thinking less of him if he could not afford the meal?

"I…well, I…" He ran a hand over his hair in an uncharacteristic nervous gesture, and his eyes slid downward to the carpet. "I am afraid I cannot exactly afford to eat in the type of establishments I know are to your taste, Holmes…but I should be very glad to take a walk with you, once the rain lets up." His voice was calm – too calm, for him; the man's emotions are an open book to me, and entertaining reading too – and quiet, almost _timid_,I should say were the word not thoroughly incompatible with his nature.

Something was very wrong, and I suddenly found that I had completely lost my appetite. His hesitation and lack of funds could generate only one logical conclusion, as could his desire to have a private talk with me.

He was leaving for other lodgings, and did not want to have to tell me the fact, perhaps in some misguided sense that I should be disappointed at his departure.

And strangely enough, I found that against all my will and previous conceptions…I _was_. No, not disappointed; it was far more than that. What it was, I can scarcely be expected to tell, since I have never felt the sensation before quite so keenly; but it is not an experience I should like to repeat.

Under similar circumstances I should have been able to easily maneuver dinner out of him without damaging his pride unduly, but in this case I somehow knew further coaxing would be useless. Therefore finally, after I had muttered an awkward agreement to the walk after Mrs. Hudson's dinner, I was forced to flee the room and its stifling tension. After a hot bath and a long smoke in the quiet solitude of my bedroom, I am slightly more comfortable in body but am growing increasingly disturbed in mind.

Part of this stems from the fact that I know it is cowardice that forced me from that sitting room; pure and simple weakness, and it would be arrogance rather than self-control were I to not admit the fact. I did not want to have to listen to him inform me that he had bought some medical practice in some part of the city, or that he was moving into new lodgings with some medico he met at St. Bart's or elsewhere.

What is the most upsetting factor, however, is not the fact that this shall trouble me so, but rather _why_ it troubles me. I doubt that I shall have time enough before dinner to unravel that particular problem, which will make our ensuing stroll through the park something of a conversational challenge. I admit I am not looking forward to it.

Strange how a man's moods are capable of changing so rapidly in so short a space; only two hours ago I was thrilled beyond belief to see London again, and now I would gladly welcome a chance to leave it once more.


	6. July 7, 1881 II

_July 7, 1881_

_11:22 p.m._

Well, this is certainly a _coup de théâtre_!

I must just scribble the astonishing, if quite welcome, turn of events down now, for I shall not be able to sleep until I do. My mind is whirring like a too-tightly wound clock-spring at the moment, preparing to go pinging against the nearest object solid enough to impede its progress, and I shall go mad if I do not do something to relieve the odd feeling (for I am highly unaccustomed to being excited over anything, much less to the degree at which I reside at present). Had I been asked to predict the outcome of this night's conversation, never in a hundred years should I have hazarded this dramatic and unforeseen result, and I freely admit to being quite dumbfounded by it.

But I shall chronicle the events in the order they occurred, no matter how much I should wish to shout the wonderful conclusion abroad without the proper backstory.

Dinner was an exercise in awkwardness, very strained and tenser than an over-wound bow-string. Frankly I have been at ease in Watson's presence since probably the third meal we shared together; his silences are never self-conscious, and he does not force me into pointless conversation, nor I him. But tonight, the clink of silver against china seemed as loud as so many gunshots, and the aimless converse more painful than a bullet-wound. Apparently we shared a joint loss of appetite as well, for we both ended the meal with our plates all but untouched.

I retrieved my walking-stick and hat and then waited for him in the hall (unfortunately placing my person directly in the line of fire for a sound tongue-lashing by Mrs. Hudson for not eating my supper). He took longer than usual to descend, either out of weariness or out of reluctance, and handed me my umbrella when he reached the bottom of the steps; I had forgotten it in the sitting-room. I seem to forget trifles (that do not have a bearing on cases, naturally) quite often, especially those unimportant issues such as would possibly benefit my health; and the man's consideration has saved me many a time.

For an awkward hour or so we strolled along in the twilight, occasionally attempting to make conversation but most of the time failing most wretchedly. Finally, as we strolled through St. James's Park under the glowing gas-lamps, I could take the strain no longer. My nerves having been stretched to their limits and beyond, I finally sighed and glanced over at him. I was preparing to hear the worst: what I already knew he was reluctant to tell me and what I was even more loath to hear.

"So, Doctor…when exactly are you planning to move out of Baker Street?" I asked straightforwardly, for I wanted the worst of it first so as to brace myself for the rest.

Walking beside me, he flinched, and his hand tightened on his stick – I could hear the leather of his neat black glove creak in protest. "I…well, I am afraid I shan't be able to get my things out for a little while yet," he replied, so quietly I could barely hear his baritone above the evening breeze. "I am sorry…I can certainly have them sent somewhere if you'd like –"

"No, no." I waved a hand uneasily both to stop his apology and to shoo a sanguinary mosquito. "There is no rush, Doctor."

He glanced sidelong at me, his eyebrows drawing close together just under his hat-brim and just above his inscrutable eyes. "Are you quite certain?"

"Of course I am." The twilight had grown darker, and the moon was now filtering through a haze of fog and clouds, illuminating the path with silver-blue patches and dark navy shadows. A thoroughly depressive atmosphere, for an equally depressive conversation. Poetic irony, I mused glumly.

"Very well, then," my companion murmured in acquiescence. His stick swiped at a fluffy dandelion-head, sending the seeds scattering on the breeze like so many fuzzy confetti-pieces.

I cleared my throat and glanced at his face, unfathomable and void, carefully so. As this is not his characteristic honest openness (I can read the man with more ease than I can an evening newspaper), he was obviously masking his feelings and thoughts from my penetration. "Have you decided where you will live? What you will be doing after you move on?"

"I…I don't exactly know the answer to either question," he admitted slowly, and I stopped to look at him in utter incredulity, while the seed of a small, wild, doubting hope landed on the fertile soil of my mind and shot out a tendril of root-system.

"You are planning to move out, and you have not decided what you will do or where you will go?" I knew the man was more intelligent than that; he was no fool nor did he act like one to make others feel more brilliant than they truly were – another quality about him that I find both fascinating and gratifying.

"I wasn't planni- that is…" He stumbled slightly on the uneven,mud-spattered path and straightened with a jerk, ducking his head in embarrassment either from the slip or his words. "I mean…I have not given the matter as much thought as I should have."

But I was ignoring his nattering, still fixed upon what he had begun to say, not what he had amended. Suddenly taking hold of his arm, I spoke. "Hold a moment, Doctor." He needed the rest and I needed some answers. "What were you going to say just now?"

"Nothing, nothing at all, Holmes," he answered readily, pulling his arm from my hand in that infernal streak of familiar stubbornness.

He then turned his head so that he was not looking at me, but I promptly moved to intercept the path of his gaze. "Watson, were you about to say that you _were not_ planning on a change of address?" I demanded, watching for his face to betray the truth even if he would not verbally give it to me.

"I…well, I…" He blinked and finally looked at me, a question clear in his deep eyes. "I…don't want to, of course, Holmes…but I know you had planned on my leaving the flat to you alone after six months, that much was clear when we moved in –"

"I never said that!" I cried, for I was positively aghast at the idea that I had been so transparently boorish as to give that impression (though it was quite true, those many months ago).

Wait, had he just informed me that he did _not_ want to leave?

The Doctor chuckled weakly, a small and very sad sound in the air of darkness. "You didn't need to; it was obvious this was a monetary venture only for you. For that matter, it was for me as well, at the time. And we agreed to six months; those six are up tomorrow. I do apologise, Holmes…I simply was hoping that it would not come down to this and I haven't been seeking out different lodgings as I should have…"

"Doctor…"

"But I shall, first thing tomorrow," he continued, oblivious to my interjection; I am not even convinced he realised I was listening. "I know a few students at the hospital that are searching for –"

"_Doctor_."

"- someone to go halves with, renting an apartment near St. Bart's…then I could just walk around the corner to work if I could manage to secure a position there as –"

"Watson, for the love of heaven will you _shut up_ for a moment?!" My impatience, and my amused exasperation, finally detonated and exploded in both our faces. I was not certain whether to laugh at the poor fellow's fumbling or to shout my relief to the cloudy night sky, but the euphoric possibilities of either seemed perfectly charming at the moment.

Watson started and blinked at me in unconditional shock, for I had never raised my voice to him, not in anger. "Holmes?"

"Doctor, why on earth would you simply _assume_ I wanted you out? Am I so rude to you as to give that impression?" I did sincerely wish to know that last, as I had not been so intentionally. Though heaven knows I am offensive often enough, unintentionally. (Yes, I am well aware that my faults beggar description. No man is perfect…especially I, it seems.)

"No, no, not at all," he replied hastily, waving away a moth from our path. I breathed out a sigh of relief on that score, at least. "But…you haven't said anything about it, Holmes…I admit I held out a small hope until just now when we were walking. You asked when I could have my things out and I assumed –"

He broke off as I began to chuckle, and then to laugh outright – nearly uncontrollably. Poor fellow, he probably believed me to have gone suddenly mad with the appearance of the summer moon, but I could not avert my mirth – the entire lack of communication and the misunderstanding were so ridiculously juvenile!

"Holmes. Are you all right?" I felt his hand on my shoulder as I doubled over, laughing with such intensity that my stomach ached afterwards.

"Yes," I gasped, standing upright once more and dabbing at my eyes. "Yes, Doctor." This was too priceless. "My dear chap, I have no intention of kicking you out of our flat; in fact I would much prefer you stay. I was under the impression that you were searching for a medical practice in London, the way that you've not had much money lately – I had deduced you were saving to purchase an agency of your own or were at the least preparing to leave!"

"You…" His warm eyes blinked slowly at me for a moment, like some thin, puzzled owl, and then I heard a boyish snicker. "Oh dear."

"Indeed."

We stood there for a moment under the gas-lamp, staring at each other, and then burst into hearty laughter once more, much to the horror of a rotund little constable who chose that moment to blunder past on his beat. He cast an askance look at the two nutters who were standing under the street-lamp but continued on his way, no doubt hoping that our keepers would be along shortly to collect us.

"And all this time…oh, dear. You've been so moody lately because you thought I was moving?" Watson finally asked, with a face wreathed in a smile so wide it nearly split his head in two.

"I was not moody."

"You were _quite_ unreasonable, actually," he chortled. I scowled, and he swung his stick up over his right shoulder and leant back against the lamp-post, his eyes shining with merriment – and relief.

"I was not moody!" Honestly. Even if I were, it would not have been over something so trivial as his deciding to move onto the next stage of life. I merely did not wish to have to locate another lodger and then grow accustomed to having the fellow around – nor did I greatly anticipate having to take the entire brunt of the rent money, that was all.

"Yes, yes, Holmes. Of course you weren't. Anyway," he chuckled, his eyes twinkling at me, "I was short of funds because I was indeed saving my money; I thought come tomorrow you should be throwing me out on the street with my luggage hurtling soon after."

"Oh, please." I glared through the gloom in his general direction before I realised from his twitching moustache that he was exaggerating, teasing me in that fashion only he can do and get away with it. "You might have said something, Doctor."

"Calling the kettle black, are we?"

"_Touché_." I chuckled despite my surface irritation, and he grinned at his small (rare) victory. "Well, now that that little…_debacle_ is out of the way, shall we endeavour to take this walk again?"

"Rather," he chirped, setting his stick upon the pavement again and, before I could realise what he was doing or protest, slipping his arm through mine in an _entirely_ too familiar gesture of companionship.

Still, in the interests of preserving this clarity of air between us, and also because I was far too relieved in mind to be truly upset by anything for a good long while, I allowed the contact. We continued in that fashion, having abandoned the awkward silence somewhere along the path behind us, for several minutes in much more pleasant conversation. After a half-hour darkness finally fell, bringing with it a contented silence, and we turned back toward home.

"I don't suppose Mrs. Hudson would appreciate being dragged out of bed for the purpose of our signing another lease," I observed mischievously as we entered the darkened, be-shuttered house.

He stifled a laugh and slowly swung the door to, being quiet as possible; the man is far more considerate than anyone else my approximate age I have ever met (my room-mates at Cambridge were prone to door-slamming and loud voices no matter what time of day or night they arrived home). Is it any wonder that I find the Diogenes such a refreshing atmosphere? "Hardly, Holmes."

"A drink before bed, then? Watch the carpeting on that sixth stair; it's loose."

"Thank you. Certainly, a drink would be welcomed." His voice floated up from behind me – too far behind me; then he was having trouble with the stairs though he was doing an admirable job of disguising his rapid breathing from my keen ears. "I believe…it is going to rain again."

His leg was paining him, then, and his shoulder too probably, poor fellow. We had walked for longer than I realised, and he was only just recuperating from being ill in addition to the old injuries. I paused at the top of the steps to make certain he would reach the hall without putting his foot down wrong, and it was a good thing I did so; for he did stumble on the top stair-board. His clutching hand found me instead of the banister, but it saved him from an ignominious fall.

"Oop…" he gasped breathlessly, rubbing a sleeve over his perspiring forehead. "Sorry, Holmes."

I _pfft_-ed and waved him into the sitting room, where Mrs. Hudson had apparently taken unfair advantage of our leaving to descend upon the unsuspecting room in all her cleaning fervour; I could smell the lemon of furniture polish, and the fingerprints in the dust covering my book-shelves (and the dust, for that matter) had vanished.

At the sideboard, a decanter in hand, I pricked up my ears as the creaking of springs and a carefully repressed intake of breath from behind me signaled that the Doctor had reached his armchair without serious mishap. Shuffling of weight against carpet indicated he had made good use of the ottoman, and a more audible sigh of contentment followed by a loud yawn signified that he was as comfortable as he could be under the circumstances.

Quite comfortable, apparently. I nearly laughed when I turned from mixing the nightcaps and found that he was already half-asleep, one arm hanging limply off the arm of the chair, his mouth half-open, and beginning to snore quietly. I had already deduced over dinner that he had not been sleeping well, probably due to the weather, and so was not about to disturb him. However, I may pop out into the sitting room now and wake him, to at least move him to the settee as he will be in a deal more pain if he stays in that awkward position all the night.

It is an odd feeling, being so unreasonably excited as I am over the fact that I shall not have to locate and acclimate to another lodger. That would be _highly_ inconvenient, not to mention would require an enormous expenditure of work and effort on my part. No, it simply would not do. Much better that the Doctor continue on; at least I am capable of tolerating the fellow without being prone to fantastical thoughts regarding his murder, which is more than I can say for my brother or any other fellow of my (reprehensibly limited) acquaintance.

I believe that on those grounds I may be excused a bit of uncharacteristic and logic-destroying pleasure in the outcome of the evening.

And even if this bizarre emotional reaction does destroy my logical processes for a little while, I have no case at present and am thoroughly entitled to a mental aberration.


	7. July 8, 1881

_July 8, 1881_

_6:10 p.m._

Finding it difficult to concentrate upon my various works-in-progress due to this infernal question which has been pestering my mind since the Doctor's return today, I have summarily given up hope of finishing the paragraph on which I was engaged and instead turned my attention to this pointless scribble in the hopes that it shall cleanse my mind of these disturbing queries which continue to vex me.

But I have again fallen into that deplorable habit of beginning a story _in medias res_. _Ab_ _initio_, then:

The thunder-squall that had been hovering about in a threatening scowl finally decided to crash down upon us just after dawn this morning. I vaguely remember awaking (from a most disturbing dream involving Inspector Lestrade, an oversized packet of fish and chips, a bank robbery, and several rather nasty pond ducks in the middle of Hyde Park; no, I shall _not_ detail the connections between them) at a monstrous clap of thunder and then promptly dropping off again into a light slumber, after ascertaining the roof was still upon the house (for _something_ had just crashed in the back garden). As I discovered this morning due to Mrs. Hudson's weeping and wailing, it was merely a stray cat overturning a metal bin full of clippings from her precious peony bed.

I blearily blurred into wakefulness once more, oddly enough, when my door shut with a soft click. I had left it ajar last night (purely by accident) after checking to make certain the storm had not woken the Doctor. Now a gleam of gaslight was trickling under it, poking lazily at the shadows surrounding my bed; obviously he had closed it so the light would not waken me.

I was somewhat surprised, and rather nettled, to discover upon consulting my watch that it was barely after seven. As the Doctor is most definitely not a lover of early rising (as I have learnt to my amusement on the few times I have ventured to awaken him before nine of a morning; the language the fellow has when he is half-asleep!), this was slightly extraordinary. I yanked on my slippers and dressing-gown and stumbled into the sitting-room, only to find the man fully dressed and hurriedly tugging on his cravat in the reflection of the mantel-mirror.

"What the devil are you doing?" I slurred on my way to the table, where Mrs. Hudson had laid a cold breakfast and hot coffee – heaven's blessings upon the woman.

"Accident down the street, the corner of Marylebone. Two peddlars' carts collided with a bicyclist, and one of the fellows apparently has a badly broken leg that needs setting," he answered with a small yawn, while rubbing his eyes into their usual bright alertness with one hand and buttoning his collar-ends deftly with the other. "Apparently I am the nearest doctor in this district."

I raised an eyebrow over my coffee. "How did anyone locate you, then, for you have no lamp up?"

"It was the constable on the beat this first part of the day; he knows of me. Last week he was attacked by a large alley dog just as I was returning from the barber's. I saw it, helped him chase the dog away, and then treated the bites on his arm. Have you been using my large umbrella for something? The one I had last night is a bit small, and I don't want my bag getting wet nor my patient getting dripped upon while I work."

I reached with my free hand to snag his good umbrella from where I had been using it to shade the varieties of _Agaricus fastibilis _I was attempting to grow in an old cigar-box (the dark corner behind the file cabinet makes an ideal location for such experiments, and they are coming along nicely). He could have it back for the day, since it was not going to be sunny, certainly.

"I do not want to know what you were doing with it," he snorted in good-natured amusement as I handed it to him in a dramatic flourish (nearly taking my eye out in the process, confound it).

"No, probably not," I agreed complacently. "Did you eat?"

"A little; no time right now. I should be back shortly – ah, Constable. Did you call the ambulance like I told you, and tell the others to keep people away from the scene and keep the fellow well-covered?"

A fresh-faced young bobby in his early twenties had appeared in the doorway, his helmet dripping water all over Mrs. Hudson's hall carpet. Breathlessly he nodded an affirmative, and then jerked his head downward in greeting to me.

"Good-morning, Constable. I would suggest if you intend to keep courting that young lady of yours who works in that townhouse on Oxford, that you take more care from now on to not be seen by her brother when you bring her back past dark," I observed from behind an impressive yawn.

The young fellow's eyes bulged, and Watson's rolled toward the ceiling in a clear opinion of my flippant dramatics. I chuckled into my coffee, reaching out with one hand to catch the _Times_ that came hurtling my direction.

"'Ere, now, Mr. 'Olmes. Aren't you the fellow I've 'ad complaints about lately, shootin' off firearms indoors at all hours of the afternoon?" the infernal constable demanded suspiciously, and I nearly asphyxiated on my toast and jam.

"Erm..." I coughed crumbs into my napkin and looked helplessly at the Doctor, who was favoring me with an extremely severe look. That was one little habit of mine which frequency he was not aware the extent of, at least not until this colossal idiot had to open his mouth just now.

But he saved me, nonetheless, though the look I got clearly told me we should be discussing the matter further when he returned. "We've no time for aimless conversation," he snapped, switching back into the role of competent physician and forcibly propelling the hapless P.C. from the room. "In this weather, the man could die of exposure more so than blood-loss if something is not done..."

His voice trailed away on the stairs, and I finished my breakfast over the criminal news, what there was of it. No crimes of any note in nearly a week in the city; at least none that presented enough interest or needed enough help that one of the police detectives would admit their _incapacité_ and come for my aid.

A clap of thunder so loud that the gas-jet rattled in its bracket, shivering for at least a full ten seconds, startled me just as I was marking the items I wished to clip out later by puncturing them with Watson's unused fork (I could not reach my pencils, and this time I did actually remember to not tear out the articles of note, in case the Doctor should want to read the paper upon his return). Then the rain, which had slackened slightly, returned in a gale that I have rarely heard – such pounding of torrents upon the roof that conversation would have been nearly unattainable (were there someone present to make conversation _with_).

I spent the next portion of my time in researching through my old case-notes for a reference to Canterois, the French diamond-smuggler, and in tearing my desk apart; a futile attempt to locate the notebook in which I have been steadily measuring the growth of my mushrooms (I still have not found the thing, and must remember to ask Watson where I put it – the man seems to always know better than I). A rumble of thunder greeted and applauded my failure, and between streaks of lightning the windows were so dark one would have thought it was midnight, rather than nearly eleven.

Wait, nearly _eleven_?

So engaged had I been in ruminating over the interesting, if rather obvious, _Daily Herald_ account of the solution of the Wimpole Street cab-horse theft (interesting in that the thief took only the horse, not the cab), that I had not noticed - it had been nearly four full hours since the Doctor had left, to go just down to Marylebone to set a man's leg and then wait for an ambulance?

I got up from my chair and peered out of the window, but only dimly-drowned houses and hurrying unfortunates on the murky street below met my eyes – and none of the latter was limping or carrying a black physician's bag.

And it was at that moment that a very uncomfortable, crawling sensation started at the base of my spine and began working its icy way up to my neck. Really, it was quite remarkable, and I cannot ever recall sensing quite that particular reaction ever before. Were the idea not so utterly absurd (for the Doctor is more than capable of handling himself with aplomb), I would almost say that I was actually worried for a few moments, until I rationalized that if he had been in an accident or something I should have been notified by now.

_Shouldn't I?_

Another indication of some unusual mental lapse was in the fact that I jumped at the next cannon-battery of thunder, which buffeted the house and sent the very windows shuddering in fear. The deluge was rapidly approaching hurricane qualifications, and I shook my head and curled up into my chair by the fire to plan my new monograph (upon the subject of nocturnal animals and their traces, quite useful in sorting the coincidental from the vital in country murders, for instance), merely glad that I was snug and warm at home.

I am still at a loss to understand why the devil I could not focus upon said monograph, nor why every creak and groan and thud from downstairs caused me to sit up and listen. I was more grateful than I should ever admit, when from below the door suddenly slammed to with a howl of bluster, and I heard the feminine dismayed vociferations that heralded the homecoming of one extremely drenched retired army surgeon.

Five minutes later I heard his footsteps – very slow, and very uneven – on the stairs. Seventeen and then a lengthy pause, after ten seconds of which I tossed my notebook into the empty coal-bucket for safe-keeping and went to open the door.

"Where the devil have you been?" was, in retrospect, probably not what he wanted to hear, but then again tact has never been a strong point with me. Besides, the man should notify me if he intends to change his plans so radically.

He was leaning with both hands on the hall table, dripping everywhere and breathing heavily, and apparently I startled him for he jumped at my voice and darted a glare that would have turned a mere mortal into dust.

"Why bother to tell you, since you no doubt will detail every last feature about my morning back to me anyway?" he snapped crossly over his shoulder as he hung his damp bowler on the banister-knob, to help keep its shape.

I felt my eyebrows reach out to brush my hairline, and wisely retreated into the sitting-room. I am not a timorous man, but there is no reason to be purposely aggressive to anyone, least of all someone with whom one must share a house – for six more months.

Besides, in only seven-and-one-half seconds of observation as he crossed the room and fell into his armchair, I could see that (for him at least) he had good enough reason to not be agreeable.

That left the rather problematic issue of what I should do that would not be inflammatory (most of my conversation-starters _are_, I will admit).

I could ask him if he had drunk too much to want luncheon or some hot tea, but he might take offense at that, believing that I thought he was intoxicated – far from it, he merely was obviously sick from having consumed cheap ale on an empty stomach. I could also tell him that he needed to stop indulging in such concern for other people, as his compassion could prove to be a very dangerous trait; but then he no doubt would not react well to that either.

My two initial options clearly not the best courses of action, I fell back on the weakest, but possibly least provocative (and thereby the least productive), of the three.

Settling down in my chair opposite, I glanced over – he was holding his head in one hand – and merely spoke quietly. "I am very sorry that the man died, Doctor."

His hand clenched, pinching a vein into blue starkness, but that was the only sign that he had heard me. Finally he sat back with a weak sigh, looking at me. "You are not going to spiel off a string of observations that informed you what I have been doing, are you?"

"Certainly not, unless you wish it."

"No," he muttered wretchedly. "No, I would rather not."

"I should like to caution you, however, as I have before and without your heeding my warnings: you cannot simply walk through Aldgate, even in the daytime – and especially in this dark storm – safely," I chided severely. "You do not know London and its depravity as I do, Doctor."

Some perverse fire sparked in the back of his eyes, and they began to smoulder at me. Characteristically, I was fool enough to ignore the bull-pup champing at the end of its leash and ignored his continuance.

"Holmes, I am more than capable of taking care of myself."

I dared not contradict, for his voice was already rising slightly, sharpening its dull edge on my unsuspecting person until by the end of his speech it had crescendoed to six pitches above his usual tone.

"And what is more, I am a doctor, one that has spent far too much time in those districts as it is – volunteering much of the time I might add! – and as such, that bag I carry gives me free passage under normal circumstances. And _furthermore_," he added viciously, his right hand clenching on the arm of the chair as he stood to unsteady feet, his voice fluctuating angrily with the movement, "that man had a wife and three children under the age of five – living in one room, Holmes – and I was not about to allow some well-fed, impersonal policeman to go and inform her that her husband had died of shock and respiratory failure when medically speaking he should only have been off his feet for a few weeks with a broken leg!"

I winced as the door slammed behind him, wishing I had known the particulars and so could have adjusted my plan accordingly; it had backfired nicely on me, which is only what I deserved for venturing into the uncharted waters of _concern_. Pah. It is not worth the expenditure of effort.

The pieces of the puzzle had been obvious, certainly; he had seen to the patient, and had followed to the hospital. The man had been a poor cart-peddlar probably in terrible health, and most likely had spent the majority of the last few weeks in one of those appalling workhouses or shelters _(Note to self: Badger Mycroft until he does something or at least puts a bee in the Parliament's stuffy bonnet about the deplorable conditions of the East End_), where he had contracted a respiratory illness that was merely exacerbated by being hit with a cart this morning and left in the rain waiting for one of the ambulances to work its way through the storm.

He had then died in hospital, and apparently the Doctor was labouring under some impression that the man's death was his responsibility, though he could have done no more than he did; most would have done less. And he had gone into the heart of Aldgate to notify the family, whom he knew from some dealings with his charity clinic, and that in a rainstorm when he was already in considerable pain. He had then returned to the hospital, no doubt to inquire about formalities, and then had spent a bit of time in a public-house (I could not tell which exactly, since the rain had diluted the traces of mud upon his trouser-cuffs) before arriving home.

And, it only now occurred to me as I revolved this sequence of events in my mind, I had not perceived his foot-falls on the stairs; in all probability he was sitting out there, regretting his outburst but unable to climb to his room just yet.

However, these things did not change the fact that he needed to be more careful walking through those areas (talisman of a medical bag or not), and that he also cared far too much for mankind in general; such sensitive attachment can only bring grief to a man, which is why I refuse to allow such affection in my own case with _anyone_.

But to continue on my story, one thing that I have learned in six months is that I cannot stand to see the fellow so miserably doubting his own self-worth, and so I took my life into my hands and opened the hall door again.

As I had suspected, he was sitting morosely on the second flight of steps, his elbows upon his knees and his head resting upon his arms, a damp patch soaking the carpet all around him (for he was still utterly drenched).

Sitting on the wet stair beside him was, in hindsight, _not_ an intelligent thing to do, as I cannot abide damp clothing and how it adheres so coldly to one's skin. But the deed was done, and for a moment I contemplated the wall and the dents I had put in the paper last time I had attempted to carry a portmanteau down the stairs single-handedly.

"I…had not meant to insult you, Doctor," I ventured when he did not look up. He had noticed I sat, however, for he had either unconsciously or consciously moved a little closer to close the safe gap I had left between us.

"No," he answered muffledly into his wet sleeves. "Of course not - I was insufferably rude."

"Pshaw, my dear fellow; I am not certain you are _capable_ of being intentionally rude," I responded lightly.

His shoulders twitched in a weak chuckle, and he slid his head sideways to look at me with one eye. "You have not seen me when I am truly in a temper, have you?"

"No, but I imagine it would be highly fascinating," I mused, tapping my fingers on wet carpet with a series of sodden squishes.

This time he did smile at least, and lifted his head to rest it against the railing, and he turned on the stair to look at me but said nothing.

I intensely dislike awkward silences, and so attempted to fill this one. "You are not a fool, Doctor; you must be able to see that you cannot possibly be responsible for the fellow's dying while in hospital, surely?"

He nodded wearily, looking down at the carpet for a moment before moving back up to meet my eyes. "Yes, I know…but still." He sighed sadly and then shivered as water no doubt was still trickling out of his hair down his neck.

"_Still_, I am correct," I interjected with considerably less force than I employ normally with people who are insistent upon opinions that do not match my unarguably-correct ones. "You must be more careful in London; and also, Watson, you must not take the responsibility for the entire world upon you. I do not care who you are or who you are trying to be here, but you are only _one man_ and must remember that it is not your duty to care for the entirety of London."

I had pressed upon a sore point somewhere in that odd train of thought that leapt unbidden from the tracks of my mind's station, for the blaze flared up, hot and destructive, in his eyes before he made an obvious effort to cool the fact from my notice. His fist slowly, deliberately, unclenched from the knee of his soaked trousers, and he struggled to his feet before I could offer any aid – not that he would have accepted, but then at least he could not complain about my lack of courtesy.

Those burning eyes caused an unaccountable squirming urge to flicker itchingly in my limbs, but he turned without a word to ascend to his room for dry attire. I can still hear his last statement echoing even now in my head, disconcertingly vivid.

He paused, looked at me as if considering my words, and then spoke in a hollow tone. "Duty is not the same thing as a _purpose_, Holmes. And there are precious few purposes a half-crippled, retired army surgeon with no money and no prospects can find in a city like London."

Before I could refute that ridiculously inaccurate assessment (half-crippled, indeed! The man could - and had - held his own in a nasty and out-matched street-fight in my company), or even respond to it, he was dragging himself up the steps, where he has remained in his room for the entirety of the afternoon.

And even after putting the full sequence of events from my mind in order to concentrate upon my monograph for a few hours, I yet find myself thinking too precisely upon this smaller event, which solution I fear is beyond my logical capabilities.

Hence, the respite from attempting to ferret out a practical resolution and instead wasting twenty minutes in scribbling down this improbable fiction.

And now I must see if I can coax Watson out of that den for dinner, as Mrs. Hudson shall have my head on a charger if I do not.

I am not sure which of them at the moment I am more wary of.


	8. July 11, 1881

_July 11, 1881_

_No idea what time it is; my watch is beyond reach on the table. Evening, for the sun is setting – I can see the glow around the blinds._

I find it hard to credit that nearly three suns have risen (or is it the sun that is stationary, and the earth that moves…I never can remember since Watson confused me on the matter) from the last time I scribbled in this journal of mine – but the evidence of the newspapers and the insistence of my self-imposed physician proves the conjecture to be a correct one. I truly must have been unconscious or at least dancing the edge for nearly seventy-two hours (the reason this entry is written in such hurried and cramped style is that if the Doctor catches me at anything but sleeping I shall no doubt be bullied about it _ad tedium_).

An explanation is probably forthcoming, though no one shall ever read this scattered memoir, but for my own peace of mind and rumination (not to mention fending off intense boredom) if nothing else.

The night of the eighth, I see from the opposing page, ended with my unlucky discussion – one could hardly call it an argument, really, if neither of us was truly attacking the other – with the Doctor, and my attempting to coax him out of his room for dinner. I must admit to being entirely unsuccessful. I no doubt could have picked the lock on the door he shut in my face so rudely, but somehow I seriously doubt that would have helped matters. I wisely retreated from the field of battle before being incinerated by the man's Olympian thunder-bolt of a temper.

His depression was something of a nuisance to my good humour, for one thing, completely spoiling what had been a productive, if wet, afternoon – but it was also so uncharacteristically dark that the anomaly both startled and (as anyone nosy enough to read this no doubt will gasp in shock) _concerned_ me. My flat-mate is constant as the northern star, and usually just as bright – any aberrance in that geniality seems to throw his nature so completely from its normal tack that he is scarcely the same man I have grown accustomed to seeing about the place. I could hear him prowling all over his room throughout the night, until his leg finally gave out and he apparently confined his restlessness to his dreams afterwards.

Why the man believes himself to be next to useless is beyond me, for the very idea is almost laughable; he is a qualified surgeon, a more than passable practitioner, a gentleman to the point of being predictably _dull,_ and is the type that makes friends and charms people everywhere he goes, due to a nature utterly void of malice – such a person should have no trouble in finding a niche in life, and yet he does not seem to have discovered one yet despite his working himself half into the grave in the last six months to accomplish that end.

I understand the need for action, the craving for some reason to propel one's self from between the sheets each morning, better even than he – but I am not so insecure as to doubt my own worth to society, nor question what genius I can bestow upon others less gifted. Unfortunately, the Doctor is not so self-confident or quite so brilliant as I, nor does he possess the _ruthlessness_ necessary to force his way into society, screaming for immediate notice.

I wondered absently over my solitary dinner if there were some way I could find the man something to do…perhaps the Yard could use a substitute police-surgeon? Not that I should prefer his first regularly-paid work experience to be with dunderheads of that calibre, but it would certainly be preferable to his haunting the house like a grim wraith of a soldier, frightening away my clients. Though frankly I am not certain I have any grace or favours left to claim with the higher-ups in the Yard's hierarchy, not after that Baltimore Club card-scandal last month that sent two of the CID inspectors up for 'sharping and playing during their shifts.

As it happened, I was saved from both the effort of contemplating the matter further, and from prevaricating an excuse to Watson to give him something to do with his time, for the next morning brought a client pounding frenetically on the door at no later than half-past eight. The young fellow pushed past Mrs. Hudson (making an instant dangerous enemy out of that estimable lady) and flew up to the sitting-room, where I had barely lit my before-breakfast pipe.

He then proceeded to gasp out between hysterical wheezes that he was going to be killed if I could not "stop them, Mr. Holmes," and then fainted dead away on the rug, where I noticed after an interested moment that two of the fingers on his left hand were badly mangled, obviously from being caught in some kind of stamping machinery, and were now seeping scarlet-stickily into Mrs. Hudson's carpeting.

Watson was _entirely_ unappreciative of my beating a steady tattoo on his door and answered it with a yank that nearly took one hinge off the jamb, his face mirroring the storm still lurking outside (replete with thunder and bursts of dangerous lightning) until I explained the situation and so saved my neck.

I am still amazed at the speed with which the man can make himself entirely neat and presentable of a morning, despite the fact that he loathes being woken up before nine. Almost before I had rummaged his medical bag out from under the sofa and calmed Mrs. Hudson into boiling some water, he was kneeling beside the poor chap on the floor and barking orders at me in a tone I dared not disobey (I pity his poor orderly in the War, whoever the fellow may be…may have _been_, perhaps…a depressing thought, that…).

This was the first time I had ever seen him in his element, from inception to conclusion, and frankly I found it oddly fascinating – I certainly am able to perceive why he was one of few who survived Maiwand (the entire War, for that matter), and why he made a stalwart (and obviously commanding) army medic. Faster than I would have thought possible, he had the young fellow's fingers salvaged, splinted, and bandaged, two shots of brandy and a small amount of laudanum in the man, and was scrubbing out the stains upon the rug while I stood by watching in a sort of dumb fascination while replacing his supplies into his case.

Mrs. Hudson opened the door behind me, scolded me in rather heated terms about my "just standing there and letting the poor man do all that by himself," shoved a coffee-tray into my hands, and whisked the blood-soaked rags out with a motherly pat on the Doctor's good shoulder (and without cringing at the mess, a trait which I find quite admirable in a woman – no hysterics from that quarter, certainly. Jolly good.). He struggled to his feet and smiled wearily at my reddened face, indicating without a word that he did not mind my spectator-status.

Still, as a sort of unequal reparation borne more out of gratitude for the morning's entertainment and mental diversion than out of actual repentance, I fixed him a cup of coffee the way he likes it and told him to sit while I endeavoured to discover what the devil had happened to the man who was currently limp in repose upon our settee, his bandaged hand laid upon his methodically-rising waistcoat-front.

What had happened to him, I shall not here detail as Watson is liable to come back momentarily and prevent me from finishing – sufficient for this portion of my narrative is the fact that after regaining his senses the man informed me he had run afoul of a counterfeiting gang on the other side of the Victoria Embankment, not far from where Gregson and I collared Anders, the Button Street parakeet-napper, last winter in that bone-tingling ice storm.

Once I had learned everything there was to know about the matter, I threw on my coat and hat and went straight round for Lestrade; this was, if the description my client gave me was correct, the same gang that we had tried to apprehend over a month ago, only to have them somehow discover our plans. The entire blessed pack of them had instantly scurried underground like so many moles, disappearing completely from that time until this.

Watson nearly had a conniption when I said I was going after them, and at his vigorous insistence I took my Eley's and my heaviest stick. I refused to allow him to accompany us, for not only would the operation be dangerous but also he had an injured patient to attend to. He was, surprisingly, very unhappy about the matter. I keep forgetting that he rarely has any idea just how dangerous some of these cases are that I take upon myself while he is elsewhere, and so it makes it all the more worrisome for his medical sensibilities if he does know (one would think he would merely be glad of the extra patient on which to inflict his boredom, but he appears to have more regard for my state of health than I have for myself).

However, in this instance (as he has taken great pleasure in pointing out to me just before leaving my room a few minutes ago) his fear was justified; for though we did apprehend the gang, Lestrade lost a good constable in the process and I took a nasty stab wound to the arm with what was a filthy knife, if the infection and fever which he says have occupied the last three days of my life is any indication.

I only vaguely remember bits and pieces of the hours – minutes? – immediately following the fight; Lestrade's story evidently was that I insisted he take me back to Baker Street and not the closest hospital, though I recall nothing of the kind. The Doctor corroborated this just now; namely, that I frightened both him and the Inspector half to death by staggering through the door under my own power only to then collapse in a dead faint at Watson's feet in the hall downstairs.

As that situation is highly embarrassing to think of, I prefer to believe that they are both merely pulling my leg, taking advantage of my less-than-standard state to twit me mercilessly; though the Doctor looks far too pale and scared to really _be_ in a state to tease me at the moment…almost as if he has not slept in quite some time and is desperately worried about something (what, I wonder?). Must be having those nightmares again, I suppose, or else it is too hot in his room…or perhaps something went wrong at one of his pet charities again or something of the sort.

I really have no idea and am far too worn to care at the moment.

Anyway, I do hope I did not make an errant fool of myself, for I shall never live down getting in the way of that knife-wielding counterfeiter as it is.

If the Doctor is telling me the truth (which he usually does unless it concerns some personal affair of his), the knife must have been positively ghastly with grime and heaven knows what else, for I had a very spiteful infection that shot my temperature up quite high for the last three days. It is still not down enough for me to even consider leaving bed, unless I wish to crack my head open on the wardrobe door, but enough that I at least know who I am (for apparently I did not for a bit of the time last night, according to the resident physician).

I woke about three hours ago, and for the first time saw my ceiling as it was supposed to be, not as swooping down to envelop me, receding upward, and then dancing about in a dizzying circle as it has been every other time I opened my eyes (and then promptly regretted it). My grunt brought the Doctor over to my bed from somewhere – was he going through my things or something? – and he then appraised me that I was very ill and should rest, not talk, etc., etc., and all the other medical jargon with which those chaps like to reprimand unsuspecting victims who possess considerably less will-power than I.

His voice was rather fuzzy in my ears, though, and for some reason I could barely listen for a lengthy time (perhaps it was because the room was so hot; at any rate that did not help much) – and this time I was not ignoring him intentionally, I just could not seem to keep my mind on things. I fell asleep before he had done, and I trust he was not offended. If so, I can always plead my illness and that should do well for me in excusing any lapses in judgment or courtesy for the next few days.

Frankly I do not feel overly well, and even more so in the knowledge that I have been trapped here for three days already and who knows how many more in future from that doctor's orders – blast, he is coming back up the stairs, no doubt with more liquids of varying tastes and disgusting textures for me to choke down. Lovely. What was it that American, Benjamin Franklin, said? _He's the best physician that knows the worthlessness of most medicines. _

Hee. Clever lot, the Americans.

Must hide this now. More tomorrow.


	9. July 14, 1881

_July 14, 1881_

_6:42 p.m._

Apparently I was a bit more unwell than I had supposed while inscribing the previous entry, three days ago tonight; for even now I am not certain how I managed to scribble down so lengthy a journaling in the ailing condition I was. Even had the Doctor not returned when he did, I probably should have desisted momentarily anyway, as within the hour I was again feeling considerably ill.

He tells me that my fever was fluctuating wildly, and I believe it – for the simple reason that it appeared that both summer and winter seemed to be waging heated (and chilled) battle in my bedroom, and that for hours on end I could not open my eyes without seeing bizarre, distorted versions of the normal domesticities I normally perceive upon waking. Strange what the mind can conjure when one is not in complete control of it; raise a man's temperature six degrees and he becomes pathetically delusional. Truly, if the body be feeble, the mind will not be strong (1), and I am most unquestionably relieved to be back in the land of the lucid.

And I do hope that I did not embarrass myself further that I recall whilst I was ill. The Doctor assures me that I said nothing exaggeratedly remarkable in my delirium the few times I fell into it, but I am not certain if he would tell me the truth had I said something pitifully personal. Dear heaven, let us hope not.

I woke at last in the early hours of this morning, feeling far more like a human being than I have all week…yes, it has been a week, or nearly…and quite thrilled that I could actually get out of bed without feeling as if I were going to faint or be ill all over my carpet – both of which unfortunately happened at least at one point, according to the resident expert. A gentle rain was thrumming on the roof, a soft springy shower rather than the menacing thunder that had seemed to haunt my fever-dreams of late, and I felt much refreshed after a shave and clean clothing.

Then I accidentally knocked over a chair on my way into the sitting-room, and the Doctor came pounding down the stairs in an explosive fit of protective medical concern. Judging from his unusual dishevelment, he had either only just gone to bed, or only just fallen asleep. This was regrettable, not only because it looked as if the first time he has slept in several days, but also because he took the steps too rapidly and nearly fell at the bottom, putting his bad leg down wrong on the landing – and then compounding the problem by clutching frantically at the banister, unfortunately with his left arm.

Even as I started for the open doorway (though there was no way I could have reached him in time to prevent his falling), his face turned quite white and he sensibly decided to collapse on the steps, trying to catch his breath and glaring heavily at me.

"I am much improved," I informed him with a dry grin, staving off the first onslaught of un-sought-for medical advice.

"So I see…" he gasped between breaths, rubbing his eyes into a poor imitation of wakefulness. "I thought you would…sleep a while longer…after breaking that fever..."

Raising a curious eyebrow, I leaned against the doorway (gingerly, for my arm was certainly quite sore under the neat bandage that encircled it), for I was rather keen to know what the devil had been going on while I was ill (I had already discovered from the post and newspapers that it was the fourteenth of the month).

"About three this morning," he answered my unspoken question in his usual perceptive fashion, before lurching heavily to his feet and keeping tight hold of the rail with his right hand. "You've been very ill, Holmes. Worse than I've seen a man be in a long time."

"Well, then, it is certainly fortuitous that I share lodgings with a competent physician, is it not?" I cast cheerfully over my shoulder as I returned to the room, he following at a slower pace behind me.

"Very." It was not the exhausted sigh, but rather the fragile tone of voice, that alerted me to something being more amiss than I would assume from a mere brush of infection.

And wait, three this _morning_? How would he know that unless he were up with me? At _that_ hour of the night?! Either that was carrying medical duty a bit to the extreme, or the fellow was sincerely worried over my state, or my condition had truly been so grave that he had been forced to remain in the room.

None of the three options were preferable by my way of thinking, and as I settled down into my chair, quite drained from my diminutive burst of energy, I observed him from that position and found that it had most likely been a combination of all three. He appeared barely able to keep his feet, and not solely from pain caused by the bad weather. I have seen cases of nervous exhaustion several times, and he was well on his way to one – and here I had just woken him from some sorely-needed sleep.

Poor fellow, he really must stop worrying so about other people, for it is not beneficial to one's health. Not to mention he should reserve his concern for people who actually require or want it; I most definitely do _not_ on either count.

Though frankly, I discovered it was rather a flattering feeling, to know that he had at least been mildly concerned for my welfare – for the man does not bestow such regard lightly and it is certainly a thing to be valued highly for its scarcity. It has been quite some time since anyone truly cared whether I lived or died or hovered somewhere between the two – probably not since I contracted pneumonia my first term in University, and then only my brother to the extent that he would have to pay all my medical bills and was not happy about the possibility of the curtail I should produce in his finances.

I wanted – truly, I did! – to get up and forcibly make the Doctor return to his bed, but somehow my limbs were so heavy with lethargy that I could barely move them, so relentlessly exhausted did I seem. It appeared that I had taken things a bit too quickly in my haste to celebrate recovery this morning, and though I fought valiantly against the lassitude I ended with losing the battle, my banner falling to trail listlessly on the ground, as my eyelids drooped in surrender without my consent.

My last conscious remembrance was of curling up into my comfortable armchair, just to rest my eyes for a few moments. My next, of waking with a start, and finding myself with a pillow behind my head, a light afghan over my legs, a stack of unread post and papers within reach, a cold luncheon on the table, and Watson apparently nowhere in sight, having left the patient to minister to himself.

After consuming a sandwich and two cups of Mrs. Hudson's excellent tea, I found myself with the fortitude to make my way upstairs, to check that the Doctor had gone back to bed like a sensible fellow. He had, and had not even taken the time to turn down the rumpled bed-clothes or open the window for the afternoon breeze (the rain had stopped), just currently lay sprawled upon the bed as if he had fallen in that position and had not the strength to move from it.

I noiselessly cracked the window and blew out the guttering candle he had evidently left lit this morning before I returned to the sitting room, where I spent the rest of the early afternoon sorting a massive stockpile of correspondence (none of which were of any interest whatsoever, other than a rather irate letter from a potential client whose first missive had been ignored not through my choice but simply because the Doctor is too mannerly to open another's mail, and I had been rather too sick to care), working on my monograph (once I fished the notebook out of the coal-bucket), and dozing off occasionally.

And, obviously, in scribbling this slapdash journal entry.

I have told Mrs. Hudson to hold dinner until the Doctor wakes (he has been sleeping all afternoon, as far as I can tell though I have not gone upstairs to check), but if he does not bestir himself within the hour I may have to begin without him, for I am virtually famished. And no wonder; if half of what I vaguely remember from the last week is accurate, I was far too peaky to wish for sustenance (I rarely have an appetite when I am hale, much less when the room and its contents insist upon spinning around me like the crystals in a child's kaleidoscope).

It appears that in my brain's absence from my body, London went on a veritable rampage of mundane garden-parties and social gatherings; nothing at all of import, and even less of interest. I suppose even fevering my life away is preferable to boredom, at the depths of which I should be floundering had I been well for the past six days.

Not even Langdale Pike's gutter-press afforded any pertinent information, truthful or otherwise, for my scrap-books. _Tant pis_, for the rag is a promising little bed of sordid drama on most occasions and has given me great amusement on countless rainy mornings.

Lestrade's counterfeiting coup appears to have made the third page (my stabbing was not even mentioned, nor was my name – just like the man, to take the credit when I took the blow…though he did lose a good constable in the process, so I should not be entirely peeved) of last Tuesday's evening edition of the _Standard_. My client, I assume, left his fee with the Doctor and returned to his lodgings (at least he had better have done so, as I do not want to spend convalescing time tracking the fellow down for my wages).

And all other loose ends have been neatly tied up, other than the ongoing problem of the unhappy man upstairs (who is at the current moment snoring loudly enough to wake the entire 200 block of Baker Street, incidentally). I suppose my being injured and then falling ill was an obliging enough development, if it snapped him out of that confounded depression; though the crisis will be recurring if something is not done about it in a more permanent manner (I have no intention of making brushes with death a regular part of my routine, thank you very much, not even for a worthy cause).

And, oddly enough, as I have no other mental conundrum upon which to fix my brain at the moment; this will do, in the absence of a more important or more attractive matter. And whilst I am about finding a solution or at least a temporary patch for the issue, I fully intend to research in detailed clarity the events of the latter end of the Afghan War. My recent British history is woefully inadequate save for the criminal news, and his willingness to divulge his past equally insufficient – the one is easily rectified, the other not so easily.

I wonder if it is considered unnatural to have such a peculiar fascination with a single individual? Probably. And would it annoy him if he knew how often he puzzles me?

Or _does_ he know, and his quite-frequent piquing of my curiosity is entirely deliberate?

No, surely not; the fellow is as sincere and self-effacing as they come. That much innate honesty and compassion, coupled with a not insignificant intelligence, is a very dangerous combination – were such a man to use his talents for the wrong reasons, he would make quite a nasty opponent (as my recent battle with him over taking a foul-tasting bitter powder shows quite vividly).

Speak of the devil. It appears my self-imposed physician has _finally_ decided to get out of bed and greet the afternoon sun. I had better safely hide this, in case he in a fit of snooping discovers it and decides to peruse the volume.

Now for some of Mrs. Hudson's excellent cuisine, and then a good night's sleep _sans_ sick-dreams involving the criminals' portraits upon my walls gibbering wildly at me and then jumping from their frames to dance upon my coverlet.

Ugh. At least my worst nightmares are _logical_ in sequence; I should much prefer to dream of being shot on Dorset Street rather than the _aegri somnia_ (2) I have seen this week.

* * *

(1) Attributed to Thomas Jefferson.

(2) Latin: Fever-dreams, or fever-delusions


	10. July 15, 1881

_July 15, 1881_

_3:17 a.m._

Yes, a.m. This is a ludicrous hour of the morning to be doing much of anything other than scraping away on my violin (a pastime in which I have been engaging for the last half-hour, until my arm began to ache quite cruelly…and Mrs. Hudson began pounding on the ceiling of her downstairs apartments with what I assume is a broom handle), but I am not at all drowsy and therefore am not bothering to attempt slumber.

The good Doctor ranted for a full twenty-three minutes and seventeen seconds earlier about the benefits of rest and quiet in regards to convalescence from illness and injury, etc., etc.; but after I ignored him for the entirety of the diatribe and finally ended with balling up the _Evening Standard_ and tossing it good-naturedly at his head, he desisted and stalked off to his bedroom. His parting volley was a warning that if my fever returned due to my indiscretions then I could "jolly well send for another physician," as he no longer cared if I insisted upon killing myself.

I only laughed at his testiness and waved him good-night, for I well know that he would in reality attend on the instant were I to fall ill again. Predictability, thy name is John H. Watson. (Aside: I wonder what the H stands for? Now _that_ would be a fascinating topic of after-dinner conversation, once I am fully recovered enough for another verbal sparring match and once he is in a better mood; namely, not exhausted and cross. Wait, no…because then I should be expected to divulge my own second name, and I shall die a thousand slow and painful deaths first. No court in the land would exonerate my parents from bestowing such a dreadful name upon a helpless infant.)

Returning to the subject at hand – routine is a trait in which I delight, and consistency is a truly singular characteristic in most men of this age; that is one reason why I have no qualms about admitting that the Doctor does less to drive me to insanity than most of these mortals with whom I am forced to traverse the path of life.

But to abruptly alter the topic (for upon re-reading this journal I find that this man has been occupying an unhealthy segment of my thoughts for quite some time), I have only just finished sorting through my correspondence that has lain unwept, unhonoured, and unsung for the last week. Such an amalgamation of letters, telegrams, complaints from the Yard about my nicking (I prefer to think of it as long-term borrowing) evidence from crime scenes, and only one interesting letter regarding a suspicious insurance claim from a firm I have helped with such matters in the past. Unfortunately, the office will not open for another seven hours and so I am compelled to inactivity until then.

Hence the impromptu violin recital, of which Mrs. Hudson was clearly not appreciative. I have no idea if Watson liked it, did not care, did not wake up, or else is currently sitting upstairs cursing me in one of those Eastern languages he is passably fluent in.

Ah, the rain seems to be petering away; the storm is moving across the Channel and leaving a half-drowned London in its wake. The streets will be a horrible mess tomorrow. I must remember not to wear my good suit, for the last time I did after a rainstorm an omnibus splashed mud and decaying leaves all over me – and this just before I was to meet my brother at the Diogenes for his opinion on a trifling little murder in Hampshire. Neat little case, that, if of slight pecuniary benefit to my state of finances.

Perhaps this insurance investigation shall prove to be diverting enough that I shall not go _completely_ mad with boredom. The only thing possibly worse than being ill is recovering from it and having absolutely nothing with which to pass the time. I suppose I could begin memorizing the encyclopedia as my brother used to do in his leisure when we were children, or taking up a new hobby – I am thinking of the skeleton I have, residing at present up in the lumber-room; taking it apart, then attempting to string it back together in the proper bone order. After all, I have a resident Doctor to check my work and make certain I have not attached the femur to the clavicle or something equally mutated. Though I highly doubt he would enjoy rising in the morning to find phalanges and vertebrae strewn all over the sitting room like so many pieces of a jigsaw-puzzle. Mrs. Hudson, on the other hand, most likely would just sniff and inform me that I would not receive breakfast until I put my toys away.

Upon re-reading this potential client's letter, I am contemplating bringing the Doctor along tomorrow when I go to see this insurance company. He told me over dinner, upon my inquiry, that he had informed his clinic to not expect him until further notice, as he had no idea how long I should be unwell. To think that my illness has cost the man a good six days' worth of patients, even if few of those East End-ers are paying ones, is no less than guilt-inducing (an emotion which I make a habit of squelching, as it is far too uncomfortable a sensation to indulge in safely). I at least owe the chap luncheon in the Strand, if nothing else, though I have the feeling he should deny both that stark statement of fact and the offer, unless handled with great finesse (admittedly not a strong suit of mine).

But besides this, he has been a positive bear of late, and the exercise and activity might both improve his disposition and also be of substantial use to me, for at least then I should be able to examine his neat notes of the case rather than attempting to decode my own hieroglyphic scrawl.

Oh…either I awakened him with my violin, or else he was prey to another of those ghastly nightmares, for I can hear him pacing now overhead, uneven and slow. Of course I have known since shortly after entering tenement here that the man is haunted by a variety of ghosts that only he can know the true horror of. No dark alley in London could possibly present the same terrors to my active imagination as he sees on a fairly frequent basis; though these visions have (thankfully for his health and my peace of mind) decreased of late and usually only manifest themselves when he is particularly tired or has had an inordinately stressing day.

But the solitary time I, in an atypical fit of sentimentality, attempted to at least make the standard endeavor to ascertain if he was all right after one of such dreams, my awkward efforts were repelled almost immediately and the confrontation ended rather roughly for both of us. The fellow's pride runs almost too deeply to be reasonable, and my ability to be reassuring is (obviously) considerably deficient.

And as I have absolutely no idea how to rectify either problem, I have chosen the sensible method of keeping my distance and allowing him to work things out for himself. It is an amicable arrangement, I believe, though I cannot help but feel there is a better solution staring me in the face and yet I am too blind to see it.

I do wish he could sleep at the moment, though, for if I have to awaken him in the morning to attend that insurance meeting and he has _not_, he will be an insufferable grump. I do not much like having water-pitchers flung at my head come eight o'clock of a morning (not that that has happened since I accidentally dripped wax on his nose from the candle, that frosty morning last February) or to be sworn at in a sleepy, distorted-Scottish burr.

Perhaps a quieter melody on my instrument of choice, something more reminiscent of springtime and peaceful skies rather than shards of brick being raked across a wet pane of glass, is in order, for both our sakes. And respective sanities.

_3:48 a.m._

He is asleep again, and I certainly hope he appreciated my efforts for my arm aches quite sharply now.

But I am slightly drowsy myself now, and so shall betake myself to my own bed for a few hours as I cannot go up and dig through the clutter after my new proposed hobby; the lumber-room is above his bedroom and I doubt dragging a skeleton down the stairs would be beneficial to his remaining asleep.

Pity.


	11. July 15, 1881 II

_July 15, 1881_

_10:05 p.m._

This so-called insurance investigation (so-called, because an investigation by definition means that there shall be something to _investigate_) proved to be no more than an hour's worth of pointing out loopholes in paperwork and flaws in the stories of the principal parties – nothing of interest whatsoever, and barely worth the paltry fee I received for my services. I suppose I should be grateful it saved me from ennui, but honestly. Any basic logician or even one of the few Scotland Yarders who actually possess a brain instead of so much porridge slopping around inside those thick skulls could have done the same. When – _when_? – will the world recognise my talents for the brilliance they are?

As a result of this exercise in foolishness, I found myself shortly after nine seated in a cab outside the insurance office, wet and irritable, and saddled with a companion who was still quite put-out at being hauled all-but-bodily from his cozy bed at such an hour after a disturbed night.

Two cups of honey-laced tea and a sickeningly large slice of raspberry coffee-ring a la an Oxford Street café seemed to improve his disposition immensely, however, and also served to ease my own conscience about the monetary loss he has sustained of late due to my unfortunate falling ill (the stabbing was purely routine; the last time something of the sort happened he never found out about it – but it is rather hard to disguise a temperature of over one hundred two).

Boredom (and the effort of acting at ease in a social setting – how I loathe the requirements of proper behaviour!) put me quite on edge throughout the next hour, and I did no more than pick at my own slice of cake and absently stir my tea; until I noticed the Doctor was enthusiastically eyeing the former and trying very hard to appear that he was doing nothing of the kind. Raising an eyebrow, I offered to exchange the plate for the paper he had been reading and, after discarding the sporting page, ran a glance over the agony column while he inhaled the remainder of my breakfast and then settled back, much comforted.

"You keep up like that and Mrs. Hudson shall be forced to let out your suits _again_," I remarked slyly, tossing an advertisement for Brixton's Facial Soaps and Skin Cleansers onto the floor beside the sporting page. A passing busboy squawked at me, but one glare sent him scuttling back to his hole and we were left in peace once more.

I lowered the paper from one eye to see my companion hastily hide his flaming face in his tea-cup. It is such _fun_ to embarrass people in public places, truly it is; especially those who are as conventional and proper as is possible to be – bordering on boringly so – like the Doctor. Perhaps it is hardly a kind hobby, but an immensely enjoyable one.

"Yes, well…" he muttered, squirming a little in his chair and rubbing the back of his neck (a nervous habit I had noticed the third week of our being flat-mates). "Find anything of interest in the agony column?"

"A very subtle change of subject, Doctor."

"Yes, isn't it?" He grinned and poked the newspaper wall between us with an unused sugar-spoon, creasing it just in the middle of a personal requesting the whereabouts of a lady in a red-feather boa who lost six kittens last Tuesday morn. "Well? You looked rather piqued when we entered here, and something has happened to relax you a bit. Unless making jokes about my weight has that capability, then you've read something interesting."

I smiled at his tolerable, if very rudimentary, observation and lowered the paper completely this time, folding it behind itself and putting it on the table beside the honey-pot.

"Nothing particularly stellar, Doctor." I indicated an unusual personal with my fork, whereupon raspberry jam stuck it to the paper. I shook it free hastily. "This appears to be the last in a daily series of messages endeavouring to locate a Miss Sophronia Forster."

He blinked and read the announcement. "And she is?"

"In reality a book-keeper by the name of Martin Yorke," I yawned, draining my tea and setting the cup back down with a clink. "He frequents one of those dens in the heart of the city, illegal dog-fights and so on. The police have been after him for months, in their usual blundering inefficiency."

"Do you know how to locate him?" he asked with interest.

"I've been aware of his whereabouts for at least three weeks," I answered, standing to my feet and straightening my jacket. He followed my example amid a shower of cake-crumbs, exclaiming in his surprise and asking why I did not let the police in on my knowledge.

"Simply because one of my best – and cheapest – informants is a key part of his organization. Here, let me get the door," I added, seeing that he was holding his arm stiffly due to the drop in barometric pressure. "And besides, I am not retained by the police to compensate for their deficiencies."

"Thank you. I am certain they do the best they are able to," he retorted severely, with a reproving glare at me. "If they were all possessing of the genius you have, then you would no longer have an occupation, now would you?"

I paused in some surprise, until a rivulet of water dripped off an awning down under my collar, setting me wriggling in discomfort. But I was forced to agree with him, against my will, and he looked tremendously pleased at his small victory.

"But," I added in perfect complacency as we began to ramble in the direction of Baker Street, "they could certainly improve a bit without encroaching upon my monopoly on brilliance."

"My, you are humble, aren't you?"

"Only when the situation demands a lie for the sake of tact, and not always then," I retorted. "Humility is certainly not a virtue, and only causes more difficulties than pleasantries in life due to people's insistence of prevaricating and masking the truth under a façade of pretensed meekness. Perfect frankness is certainly the preferable method of communication. The only people in this life, Doctor, who get anywhere are the relentlessly ruthless ones."

"And those people," he pointed out, yanking on my arm to prevent my being run over by an over-eager flower-peddlar's cart, "are the ones who are so intense about their chosen fields and odd philosophies that they end up getting themselves killed by the normal citizens. Watch where you're stepping, for heaven's sake! I should prefer my day to be taken up by _paying_ patients, if you don't mind."

I laughed at this, and we continued bickering good-naturedly for quite a few blocks, until the wind picked up and suddenly began to howl about the alleys and town-houses, whereupon we quickened the pace so as to reach home before the storm returned with a vengeance. A newspaper-vendor just at the corner of Baker Street suddenly lost his entire cache of papers, as the gale lifted them and flung them about the street in a cloud of flapping newsprint. Poor fellow, he gave a terrible wail of dismay and tried to chase them down as best he could, nearly getting himself trampled by an iron-monger's cart-horse in the process.

I did not realise the Doctor had left my side until I saw he was returning my direction, two slightly rumpled papers in each hand from where he had evidently chased them down the street despite his bad leg. Even as I watched, he suddenly reached out to snatch another that the wind sent whirling past his head, and then I realised it was rather poor manners to not make the effort to at least snag the one caught upon a bush by my left arm. The vendor thanked us both but especially him profusely, fairly bowing in his obsequious gratitude, but the Doctor not only refused the offer of a free paper but also gave the man a half-crown to cover part of the remaining loss.

Honestly, it is no wonder the fellow never has cash to hand, for his generosity makes him a bleeding heart to every poor child and lost puppy he comes across. I should not be at all surprised if he has been working that clinic in Aldgate completely for free. It is people of that unselfish nature who get themselves robbed blind by con-men in this day, and I should probably warn him against his charitableness.

But I kept silence, seeing that my advice was not exactly apropos and therefore would probably not be appreciated, and we managed to reach Baker Street before the squall descended in vigorous force. Fat wet drops were just beginning to plop upon the pavement as I shut the door behind us, and before we had reached the sitting-room the storm had broken again in a fury that, while wild, only lasted a few hours.

Mid-afternoon found chaos coming again to our little flat, in the form of my strewing bones all over the sitting room. Watson had gone upstairs after luncheon (a _large_ luncheon, I might add) for a nap. Around five I heard him enter behind me, his shoes stop short and squeak on the rug, and then give vent to a long-suffering sigh.

I paused and glanced up, tapping the femur I held against my opposite hand.

"Holmes, what in heaven's name are you trying to do, besides give any caller the impression that you are a grave-robber?" He picked his way through the chalky debris and started for his desk.

"I am working on a new hobby, naturally," I retorted. "And I did not do so well in these classes at St. Bart's due to the fact that the instructor was a royal bore –"

"Old Ezekiel Anderson?"

"Yes, quite. My word, the skeleton he was using for an example was more animated – and instructive – than he was."

"Yes, I know him; he was teaching when I was working there a few weeks back. I wanted to walk in the classroom and poke him with a scalpel to see if he would move, or at least assume some kind of facial expression," my flat-mate replied with a small snigger. "Those poor students."

I laughed outright at the mental image, and inspected a nearby vertebrae for the number printed upon it – after two hours of unsuccessful piecing the skeleton back together I was rather entitled to cheat, I thought. Besides, if I did not, then the sitting room might remain a bone-yard for the rest of the year.

Then I jumped, flinging the femur dangerously close to the small fire Mrs. Hudson had lit against the wet, when Watson gave a very undignified yelp and leapt back from his desk.

Oh…I had forgotten I put the skull of my new friend (I really need to name the thing, in all seriousness…) just inside his half-open desk drawer for safekeeping; I had been afraid I might step on it or kick it, sending it rolling merrily into the fire. I opened my mouth in an effort to defend myself as he gingerly removed the skull and held it by the temporal lobes at arm's length, but found that I could barely speak for laughing at his expression.

He was nowhere near as amused as I, and said so. I chuckled and held out my hands, whereupon he carefully tossed the thing to me with an icy glare, cringing slightly when I moved the jaw up and down to make certain it still held together. "Next time warn a chap, will you?" he demanded. "I don't want to always be afraid to open my things, wondering if you've put poisonous scorpions or false teeth or exotic toxins or any other criminal relics in them."

"When have I ever put a poisonous scorpion in anything of yours?"

"Last spring, when you came back from that American diplomat's hotel room after he had been murdered by a secret society," he replied dryly.

"Now wait, a sugar-bowl is not something that is particularly _yours,_" I pointed out logically. Honestly. One would think I did nothing in this house but play sick practical jokes upon its occupants, to hear him talk. "It is hardly fair to count that in your list as _your_ things."

He sighed, chuckling a bit at some private joke that I missed entirely, and after a tolerant smile returned to writing his letter. I continued my work on the skeleton, occasionally asking him to check my progress or simply cheating and looking at the numbers printed upon the bones.

In this manner we passed a fairly pleasant afternoon, and a quiet evening. Then this unrealistically peaceful night suddenly erupted into pandemonium with the arrival of a client – a young fellow of about two-and-twenty, who unfortunately was accompanied by a most annoying little terrier-pup.

Said puppy apparently decided upon entering our sitting-room that it had attained the highest level of doggie paradise, for it pounced upon the nearest bone it saw on the floor – the left humerus – and promptly streaked off with it. I gave chase, naturally, leaving Watson to stammer his way through an explanation, and had chased the little blighter upstairs and downstairs and in the Doctor's chamber before Mrs. Hudson unwittingly returned from the market and let the blasted animal outside before I could shout for her to close the door.

Thankfully the little monster settled upon the tiny bit of earth surrounding a potted bonsai-tree in the doorway of the house opposite as sufficient grounds to bury his prize. After nearly having my hand taken off by the undersized shark, I retrieved my bone and the animal, carrying both back inside amidst an amused crowd of curious onlookers. Marching upstairs, I finally deposited the little beast by the scruff in front of my prospective client.

In my absence, Watson had magically hidden the rest of the skeleton – I just now found a metatarsal in the cushions of this chair…we shall probably be finding vertebrae all over the place for the next few days – from the dog's eyes and had calmed the flustered young man with some quiet conversation and a cup of tea (the universal British prescription for nerves, though I much prefer our colonial cousins' more invigorating coffee). Though much perturbed about the teeth marks now adorning my humerus, I still retrieved my pipe and left the bone in its place, and sat down to listen to the tale.

It was an unremarkable case, one of opium poisoning in a den over on the far side of the worst districts of the East End. How the lad has a friend foolish enough to get himself mixed up with rascals such as frequent that particular street of ill-repute is beyond my sensibilities, but these things do happen. I promised to look into the suspicious death – which in all likelihood was either legitimate overdosage, or else was not murder that could be proven – and showed the fellow and his little atrocity of a pet to the door.

Watson wanted to start in on me for being uncourteous to the poor fellow and his precious puppy, to which I replied that they were both lucky I did not rap the dog smartly upside the head with the bone for stealing it. This only set him off into a dissertation about it not being the dog's fault, and did I ever think about the fact that in my profession I needed to be a bit more tolerant of people or else word would get out and I would not have many well-bred clients due to my lack of manners, etc., etc.

Whether he is correct or incorrect makes no difference; he entirely missed the simple point that I do not _care_. If people need my talents badly enough, then they shall simply learn to tolerate my idiosyncrasies.

He was still blathering about kindness and consideration and some such rot when he went up to bed just now. Bless his innocent nature, he has no idea that he is the only person in the world this side of heaven who is quite so concerned with and compassionate toward his fellow man (and their horrid little pets).

All the same…I suppose I could make more of an effort to be patient once in a while – if the person in question deserves my extra consideration. Or if the Doctor is near enough at the time that I shall never hear the end of it if I do not.

We shall see. At any rate, it would be a novel activity, and worth a smallish effort at least.


	12. July 18, 1881

_July 18, 1881_

_2:23 p.m._

An odd time of afternoon to be reclining on the settee, scribbling away in this journal, but the extent of my boredom and the events of the preceding days might perhaps excuse my indulgence in _activité enfantine_.

The opium-poisoning case of two nights before last was cleared up late last night, or, more accurately, exceptionally early this morning. A routine affair, I had thought at the inset, but it evolved into something of a gruesome little business when I noticed the condition of the poisoning victim's third buttonhole. That, coupled with my observations of the soot under his left finger-nails, led me on a dangerous exploration of the worst opium dens the city offers to a besotted populace.

The Doctor wanted to accompany me night before last when I began my investigation, which proposal I of course vetoed in no uncertain terms. The type of dramatic ability required for a venture into those regions he most certainly does not possess, and besides it is no job for amateurs. I told him so as I donned my costume for the evening.

"Amateurs?" He sniffed injuriously, and his face fell into something that so resembled a three-year-old child's pout that I almost laughed. "You are _yourself_ an amateur, Holmes."

I scowled, for though the statement had a logical basis my talents most certainly could and will never be categorized in the same universe as the crude and obtuse hazarding at detection that every other amateur possesses. "That is entirely different, Doctor. This is the most dangerous area of the city, those two blocks where this man disappeared. You cannot just go blundering into an opium den and expect to emerge with your life."

"Oh, really." He raised an eyebrow at me and tossed me the wig that I had indicated while discoursing.

I adjusted it with care and began to fix it in place with a few dabs of spirit-gum. "Yes, really," I retorted. "You have never been in an opium den, Doctor, and I hope you never are forced to, because –"

"Actually," he drawled, infuriatingly calmly, "I have been in more than one. Here, watch it – you've dripped gum into your beard, just there."

I set the brush down to look at him in the reflection of my dressing-table mirror. He blinked back at me, and I shook my head in honest bewilderment. "Doctor, you mean to tell me you seriously have ventured into a London opium den."

"One in London, and one in Bombay, actually," he responded, tapping a finger against his moustache in remembrance. Then the finger waved at me emphatically. "And I can safely guarantee that Bombay is far worse, thank you very much."

This man and his infernal habit of interrupting my thought processes with some ridiculously outré observation! It is positively galling, to have habits and conceptions fixed firmly into place, neatly filed and categorized in one's brain-attic, and then to have all conjectures destroyed with the tempestuous arrival of new knowledge. Very few men are able to hide anything from me at first glance – much less after six months – and I am thoroughly unaccustomed to being thrown into a mental _volte-face_ by another man's reticence. The fellow's nature is so multi-faceted it will take me years to plumb his depths.

And that idea utterly _fascinates_ me.

"What exactly were you doing?" I asked with understandable caution. "Pass me that smaller brush, will you?"

"Certainly, here you are. In London, or Bombay?"

"Don't be so infuriating!"

He chuckled. "In Bombay, after my discharge…oh for heaven's sake, Holmes, I did not go in to smoke the infernal stuff," he added dryly, seeing my incredulous expression at his initial words. I sighed and continued applying my disguise as he continued. "I was hauling out a fellow soldier who was supposed to be on the same ship home, that is all. No one else would dare go in after the man, once he'd been there for longer than twelve hours."

"But you did." I looked upward through the filmy haze of false hair, in new-found, if grudging, respect.

The Doctor looked surprisedly back at me, his warm eyes twinkling golden in the reflection of sunlight on mirror. "Well, yes. The poor fellow had no idea what he was getting into, and he would have missed the boat, you see."

He spoke as if this were a commonplace occurrence, rather than his being the only man I was aware of – police included – who seemed to not be alarmed at the idea of entering one of those hovels alone.

"You do know you could easily have been killed."

"Nearly was," he agreed cheerfully. "But a revolver is a much more effective weapon – and a more exotic one in those Eastern parts – than a dagger."

My eyes widened, and I cursed as the motion caused the gum to crack and yank on my natural eyebrows under the false shaggy ones. But he was already continuing.

"Then here, it was after a patient, of sorts," he went on, rubbing the back of his sleeve over his forehead (for the heat was up again, stifling the room in smoldering stickiness). "His wife had a baby at the clinic, and _someone_ needed to go and get him. It wasn't the place that client of yours mentioned, though – further down the street somewhere. I cannot remember exactly. They all look alike in the dark, you know."

"You went in the dark."

"Mmhm. No, no, no, that scar simply won't do, Holmes – if a fellow had a scar that fresh-looking on his face, he'd barely be able to talk for the pain. Less coloration."

"You went in the dark. Into an opium den, in the heart of the East End. Alone."

"Are you practicing deafness for this disguise or am I unintentionally stuttering?"

Shaking off the Doctor's hand, I glared at him in the mirror. "And for no better reason than a man's wife had a _baby_??" I finally expostulated, for despite all my powers I remained utterly unable to grasp the fact that this chap had done for charity what most policemen shrank to do in the line of duty.

He folded his arms over his chest and leaned against my wallpaper. Watching for a moment to see I fixed the scar upon my cheek properly, he nodded in approval while continuing. "What of it?"

"My dear Doctor, you are either one of the bravest, or else one of the most foolhardy, men I have ever met," I informed him, quite seriously.

For a moment his eyes sharpened in surprise, and then they warmed and melted into a smile. "Probably a bit of both," he suggested impishly, and in the ensuing conversation regarding my choice of ratty headgear the matter dropped.

I shall, however, reserve my judgment on both hypotheses until they have been fully tested – an assessment which I look forward to with much anticipation (though from his reaction to the skull in his desk drawer, I am not certain I should indulge in any further examinations of his nerves just yet).

My evening was lively, and I squeezed in a bit of healthy exercise tussling with a few half-besotted louts in Swindon Street. The majority of the darkest hours, however, I spent in fruitless surveillance – the bane of any private investigator's existence. Daylight broke and arrived in all its burning glory, with my somewhat battered person being in no closer proximity to a solution than I had been the night before.

I ranted a bit to thin air, whined and wailed on my Stradivarius for an hour or so, and moped around the house for the rest of the day, in the absence of the Doctor. He was working with a fellow medico – some friend of his, the man has an unwholesome amount of them – in Paddington, from before I returned, and he was still absent when I left. With the harbinger of dusk arriving at long last to cover my traces, I set out last evening to conclude the mystery (when actually, there really was no great mystery about the affair, but some cases merely pay the landlady rather than enhancing my pride or reputation).

I returned to Baker Street this morning around five, slightly the worse for wear and so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes slitted long enough to stagger up the steps. Even the knowledge that I had succeeded in a case (fees are fees, no matter how elementary the challenge) was not sufficient to give me the energy to mount seventeen stairs.

Something evidently woke the Doctor then – whether it was my foot-falls, or that he had been nightmaring again, or the fact that I knocked the entire umbrella-stand over in the hall on my stumbling toward the sitting-room (I badly craved a cigarette, even more than sleep) and sent umbrellas and maps and walking-sticks and my scimitar clattering across the landing, I have no idea.

But whatever the reason, I had barely kicked my boots off and was fumbling in the dark for my cigarette-case, which I had left upon the mantel beside the carved shark's tooth, when a soft snick behind me caused me to whirl about. The room filled with the sight of a low warming glow, and a very sleepy, slightly inquisitive (or concerned, I was too fatigued to tell which) Doctor appeared in its halo. I relaxed slightly.

"Did you only just get in?" he murmured from back of a prodigious yawn.

"Yes," I answered wearily, for further elucidation was beyond my capabilities at the moment.

I tried to locate a match among the debris and dust (and a few phalanges from Cromwell – the name I have bestowed upon my as-yet incomplete skeletal companion, residing now headless and arm-less in the Doctor's armchair) that had accumulated. But suddenly the necessary expenditure of effort to find the match – or anything else – seemed too insurmountable a difficulty, and I permitted my head to fall to rest upon my arm on the mantel, too tired to search further.

Testimony to how poorly my reflexes were functioning, was evidenced in that I should by rights have jumped to kingdom come when I suddenly felt a hand under my elbow and another on my opposite arm. Instead, I was rather too worn-out to care who the devil was touching me in such a gesture of _l'amitié,_ and expended the remainder of my strength in just raising my head. It took a good rubbing for my eyes to focus, and I only then realised my elbow had been slowly sliding off the mantel. I would have probably collapsed – quite comfortably, too – on the floor had the Doctor not averted the event.

"Steady on, old chap," he was speaking companionably from somewhere far too close to me. "Come, you don't need to be smoking those infernal things anyhow just before bed."

"Hmm?" was the strongest protest I could tender when I felt myself being propelled against my will toward my bedroom.

"You cannot expect to go two nights – nearer three – without sleep, and not suffer for it," he scolded, and I still wonder how the deuce the man can be so stern and yet so…gentle, I suppose is the word, simultaneously. Such a trait must break some rule of medical science or something, for I have never encountered the phenomena before in my not-uneventful life.

"You would be surprised, Doctor," I muttered, "how often I can and do…"

"Then you are a fool, plain and simple," he rejoined with a sharp prod, and I could do no more than chuckle at his irritation; I was far too exhausted for argument.

I vaguely remember collapsing upon my bed and being out cold before I had time to warn the man about the umbrellas and other debris littered across the landing; but I assume that he found out without harm, as I did not wake up to clattering and screaming or horrifyingly creative threats of murdering me in my bed.

In fact, I did not wake up at all until about an hour ago, and much as I hate to admit it the fellow does have a point about rest being the best medicine. I feel perfectly fit, with a mind ready and willing for any sort of problem that may come my way.

Ironically, the day has thus far been hot, sticky, and unequivocally dull.

I am completely bored out of my not inconsiderable mind. The temperature out-of-doors is pushing the upward end of the mid-nineties; far too hot to even think of going anywhere.

The papers are full of prattle, of the excitement level equivalent to a perusal of my hatband.

Watson will not be back from wherever the devil he went until late tonight.

And my bed of _Agaricus fastibilis _died, because in the heat of this last case (no pun untended) I forgot to water them and shield them from the sun. Why could that infernal puppy not have got hold of a dying poisonous mushroom rather than one of Cromwell's appendages?

This is going to be _such_ a wonderful day.


	13. July 19, 1881

_July 19, 1881_

_1:43 p.m._

Methinks I should not have been quite so vocal yesterday afternoon (is there a word for this time of day? Yesternoon, perhaps? I must ask the Doctor; etymology seems to be one of his plethoric areas of expertise) regarding my _ennui_, for the evening held slightly more excitement than I was wishing for.

And thereby hangs a tale indeed.

This morning, I placed my dead mushrooms in their cardboard grave and left them in the hall, intending to request Mrs. Hudson to set them out for the dustman. For the very logical reason that _it slipped my mind_, I neglected to carry the action out.

Consequently, the thrifty Scotswoman in our dear landlady apparently rebelled at the flagrant discard of what she believed to be the ordinary breed of fungus. Granted, I have experimented with gardening indoors several times and even the Doctor admitted my American peanut plant of last spring, potted carefully in an old boot, was perfectly cultivated and its products actually edible – but that does not mean that I had grown these particular mushrooms for the purpose of anything other than experimenting with domestic toxins.

With that in mind, I can only retrospectively wish I had labeled the things as poisonous. But I shall come to this presently.

I spent the afternoon dozing and then going through my wardrobe in an effort to locate my white tie (I want to go to the opera some evening soon if I get a well-paying case; Verdi's _Simon Boccanegra,_ I have heard, is superb). Not hungry, as I usually am – or rather not interested enough in the meal to expend the energy to walk out to the table – I naturally shouted back to Watson through the door to have his fortification without my presence.

He grumbled quite endearingly about my poor eating habits but left off pounding on my door in favour of demolishing one of Mrs. Hudson's culinary masterpieces.

And I now thank heaven the aroma of the roast leg of lamb wafting under the door was sufficient for my stomach to raise a painfully vocal protest against my disinterested fasting; for I stretched myself and went out to the table, only just in time to hear Mrs. Hudson beaming about how she had made the sauce with "those perfectly good mushrooms Mr. Holmes was growing here of late."

!!!

I believe the Doctor assumed I had gone suddenly and irreversibly mad when I dashed across the remaining distance of the floor (leaping over the couch and skidding across two stacks of newspapers) and knocked the fork from his hand just before he got a bite of the meal in his mouth.

"**Mr.** **Holmes**!"

"Holmes! What the –"

"Watson, don't eat that!" I gasped, thoroughly winded from my impromptu acrobatics. "Mrs. Hudson, those were _poisonous_ mushrooms! I put them in the hall and…forgot to warn you," I ended somewhat abashedly, as the woman's outrage suddenly turned into horror.

The poor lady's hand flew to her open mouth with a faint gasp. "Mr. Holmes, I – Doctor – merciful heavens – "

Though his eyes, fixed for the moment in stunned incredulity upon me, were round as the meat-platter, the Doctor rose admirably to the occasion as I was backing away, very much not wanting to deal with a partially-hysterical landlady. Women, especially ones more than capable of throwing me out on my ear into the street, are not my _métier_.

"There, there, Mrs. Hudson…there is no harm done," the Doctor soothed reassuringly, placing a steadying hand upon the woman's arm as she shuddered. "You could not have known. Really, my dear lady, it is perfectly fine…not your fault in the least. There now, that's better."

I squirmed uncomfortably at the obvious insinuation that I should have told the household not to touch the things.

And, as I suspected, as soon as the door had closed behind our distraught landlady ten minutes later, he lowered the boom in true form. I suddenly wondered if this was what it felt, to be court-martialed (though he would hardly appreciate my inquiry to that effect).

"What the blazes did you think you were doing?" he exclaimed, whirling upon me in a perfectly-executed military about-face. "The poor woman is absolutely terrified! Think how guilty she would feel if we had actually _eaten_ that!"

I found myself torn equally between amusement and intrigue, that he apparently was more concerned with Mrs. Hudson's state of mind than the fact that he could have been dying, Egypt, dying in a few hours, had all gone as it was.

"I did not tell her to use the blasted things!" I grumbled in a (I admit it) childish fit of petulance. In lieu of any edible dinner, I stuffed my pipe with my darkest shag and lit it, scowling defiantly at my fellow-lodger over the bowl. The motion snapped the matchstick nearly in two, and I tossed the ends into the grate with more force than was really merited, now that I think back upon my actions.

Without missing a beat he reached behind him and threw up the window, continuing severely with "That makes no difference, Holmes. You must tell us when and where you have these dangerous experiments of yours!"

"You _knew_ I was growing them!"

My feeble defense was obviously inaccurate, as he stalked in my direction with purpose a-burning in his eyes. I stepped backward and hit my back on the jack-knife embedded in the mantel, sending it twanging in indignant protest. I edged to one side.

Unfortunately the Doctor followed and then stopped in front of me. "I mean it, Holmes," he declared with emphasis. "One day your carelessness will cause someone serious grief, and then you will never forgive yourself for it."

I raised an eyebrow, for I failed – still do – to see how I could ever do something so horrible that I could not forgive myself. Regret it, possibly – but such an extreme reaction? Never. The fellow does have a penchant for extreme melodrama at times.

Besides, I do not often make mistakes that cause even a twinge of conscience, much less regret; and in this case it was entirely _not_ my fault, no matter how much he wanted to rant about thoughtfulness and consideration and common sense and for heaven's sake look at me when I talk to you Holmes, etc., etc. I feel for the man's poor children, if he has any someday.

I had managed to quite effectively tune out his latest diatribe on the value of communication, when to disrupt my peace of mind the suddenly disturbing thought fluttered in – I had not even planned to come out of my room, and the Doctor had a rather large appetite of late.

He should have taken the full brunt of the dosage, and in his state of health the ensuing illness would have been…serious, to say the least.

And despite the humidity of the room, I felt suddenly quite chilled, as if from somewhere an arctic draught was blowing down the neck of my shirt and sending a shiver down my spine.

Watson seemed unaffected by this invisible chill, and so I can only attribute it to my somewhat distrait nerves. I finally held up a hand in mild remonstrance, and saw the bull-pup suddenly be yanked firmly back into the confines of its kennel.

"I will not be so careless again, Doctor," I stated simply; I have found that directness is usually the best oil for troubled waters. "No matter what faults I may possess, repeating my mistakes is not one I indulge in."

The storm gathering upon his brow lightened on the instant, and he relaxed. "Good." I breathed out slowly, and his eyes suddenly softened, smiling at the edges. "Mrs. Hudson will be frightened for days to serve anything in this house, you know."

"I suppose I should…" at his encouraging nod I continued, "…find a way to make it up to her?"

"That would be a good idea," he agreed, leaning his right elbow against the mantel in thought.

I scratched my upper lip with the stem of my pipe. "Have you…any ideas as to how I might go about that?" I finally asked humbly, for I am not afraid to acknowledge superiour expertise when it is in front of me. Especially since it rarely is.

"Not at the moment," he replied pensively. "But," and his eyes suddenly twinkled in an easily recognizable fit of mischief, "I believe you owe me dinner. Shall we discuss it on the way?"

I spluttered for a few seconds but really could not wriggle out of it – more because I have found myself powerless to refuse the fellow when he wears that particular expression than because I feel culpable for the evening's events.

At any rate, he was true to his word; and a large bouquet of flowers and a handsomely-scripted apology later, our landlady was slightly calmer and definitely of a greater peace of mind; by that, meaning I shall not have to worry about my toast being burnt or half my stockings disappearing in the laundry, for the next few days at least.

And now I must run, for Gregson requires my testimony at an inquest this afternoon. The Doctor has been out all morning with a _friend_, supposedly shopping for books (why the devil this excursion must occupy an entire morning, and how the man can enjoy taking such an inanely talkative fellow along with him, is more than I can fathom) and will not be back until evening.

Let us hope that dinner tonight shall be slightly less electrifying than last night's.


	14. July 21 & 22, 1881

_July 21, 1881_

_7:02 p.m._

This day was hot as Dante's _Inferno_, and just as tortuous. My kingdom for a paid trip to the country or seaside, after a poisoner (or something equally diverting).

Sole event of interest: Lestrade coming by to pay me for an armchair consultation. He did not appreciate finding one of Cromwell's arm-bones in the seat-cushion, and said so.

Watson was greatly amused. Less so when he found a vertebra under his tea-cup at luncheon.

_Note to self_: Patience is somewhat limited when criminal relics come between the man and Mrs. Hudson's cherry tart.

--

_July 22, 1881_

_10:45 a.m._

I swear before heaven, if one more day goes by without _something_ to break the monotony of heat and boredom, I shall go simply Stark Raving Mad. Yes, with capitals, for it is in a designation all its own in a brain such as mine. My mind rebels at quietude like another man's might at some repulsive insect – something must surely snap, and for my fellow-lodger's sake I hope it will not be my temper (or my sanity) when it does.

I mean, really – when the calibre of London criminal has sunk so low that _Gregson_ just last night solved a strangling in six hours without my writing him a script and half-a-dozen diagrams and a monograph on the subject, we have indeed sunk to a new low in this fair city.

At this point, I would welcome the diversion even of the most trifling matter, paid fee or no paid fee (though the former would certainly be preferable). At this current rate of employment I shall be hawking my Stradivarius to pay my half of the rent in a week's time, and the Doctor's finances are stretched thin enough as it is.

If I do not happen upon some brain-work by this evening, then I believe I shall put on a suitable disguise and ramble about the shipping district for a while in search of diversion. Not the safest method of finding mental stimulation, but at least I shall get some physical exercise that does not involve browsing the shelves at the British Museum. In addition to this, my persona in those parts as a seedy ship's captain has faded somewhat into the background, which will never do if I intend to continue the guise for the years necessary to gain the trust of valuable contacts.

Speaking of the Museum, however, I had forgotten all about that stack of materials regarding this recent Afghan Campaign, until this morning I tripped over a goodly volume I had been using to flatten a portrait of Charles Peace which I intend to hang in _le siège d'honneur_ among the others in my bedroom. I must remember to peruse those books and return them, this time _before_ getting a notice in the post that I shall have to pay for them if I do not bring them back.

But for now, ringing for breakfast (I have nothing better to do, so I suppose I may as well eat and assuage the wrath of my resident physician and still-chary landlady), as I can hear the Doctor finally up and about. If the noises from up there are anything to decide by, he did not sleep well last night; and so when I inquired, Mrs. Hudson was more than willing to postpone the kippers and eggs until a more appreciative audience than my lowly self was stirring.

Here is hoping for a more engaging day than I have had this week, and also for a thunderstorm or at least a thermometer below ninety-five.

--

_July 23, 1881_

_1:50 a.m._

Yes, it is a.m. How the devil am I supposed to sleep, with that man tramping about upstairs? This is the forty-third time he has paced a circle on my ceiling, and if the pattern continues I shall be somewhat apprehensive of plaster beginning to rain down upon my head.

Granted, it is infernally hot in this house even with the windows open, and granted, I fully appreciate (better than most) how disturbing a sleepless – or worse, a sleep-haunted – night can be. But honestly, why can he not come downstairs and pace in the sitting room rather than this incessant _creeeeeak thump creeeeeeeeak thump_ directly above my weary head?

In earlier months, perhaps I would have gone upstairs and, under the guise of asking if all was well, thereby indirectly informed him that he is keeping me awake. But I find myself unwilling to make the fellow more restless than he clearly is; even I am not so unfeeling as to induce guilt upon a man who does not deserve it, unless it furthers some cause of mine in some essential way. This would not, and so the Doctor shall escape my manipulations on this occasion.

I suppose, in the absence of being able to sleep, I shall catch up on some reading. And though one of my monographs probably would be sufficient to make me drowsy, if the Doctor's less-than-enthusiastic reaction to my work on identifying different types of blotting-paper is any indication, I think something more riveting might be in order.

Given the reason for which I sit here memorializing my irritation in my journal, this pamphlet _What the Fusiliers Did_ (1) seems particularly pertinent.

_4:15 a.m._

That…was disturbing. My only question now is how the man can sleep _at all_ of nights.

But I find it rather odd, though I will admit I do not keep up much on these current political events, that none of these six books or pamphlets I have here upon my bedside table speak very much at all of the battle of Maiwand.

Why, I wonder?

I am aware that it was an atrocious defeat, and I know second-hand from my brother's political escapades that such things usually do not see their way into detailed print for the sake of public morale…but even so, surely _something _can be unearthed about it? (2)

I am not a man to pry into another's affairs (without sufficient reason), but my interest has been piqued by this significant lack of detail about that fatal defeat. Just the small paragraph in one of these works is enough to make me speculate just how fortunate the Doctor really is to be _alive_, much less relatively whole (though he somewhat bitterly denies that last).

It would appear that my mind has now been gripped by something of a minor mystery in this matter, that of the British government's conspicuous silence on the subject of one of their worst defeats in history. And I am just the man to ferret out the details that have been carefully concealed behind a blank line of statistics and cold facts, whether intentionally or no.

I know how I shall be spending my time tomorrow morning. _This_ morning, rather, as it is drawing near to the dawn.

(_Edit upon re-reading_: My word, I must truly be bored out of my sensibilities, to be so enthralled at the prospect of discovering information that will have absolutely no bearing or benefit to anything in my well-ordered brain-attic.)

* * *

(1) This was indeed a real memoir: Cooper, H: _**What the Fusiliers Did**__, an account of the part taken by the 1st Battalion 5th Northumberland Fusiliers in the Afghan Campaigns of 1878-9 and 1879-80._ Antony Rowe Ltd, 1880. (also Naval & Military Press, 2003)

(bibliography swiped from _http: // www . garenewing . co . uk / angloafghanwar / sitestuff / bibliography . php_)

(2) Kipling's A Young British Soldier unfortunately wasn't written until 1895, otherwise I would have cited it here somewhere.

--

And it seems to be true that the Battle of Maiwand was not really discussed in any detail at all, in any resources I could locate of that time period – and the resident expert on the subject (many thanks, _Pompey_) concurs with my logic on that, so I will continue to conjecture.

(And sorry for the apparent lack of momentum on this story; I'm trying to bash my way through writer's block at the moment and don't want to just fill these chapters without advancing the plot.)


	15. July 23, 1881

**A/N: **Um...yeah. Oh boy. (hides) It's been a really, _really_ long time since I left my WIPs (five MONTHS, srsly??), hasn't it? My apologies for the wait, to anyone who was actually still reading my Holmes fic - and my promise of best intentions to pick all of them up within the next month or two. My life is insane at the moment, and my muse uncooperative, but I am trying and I do intend to get cracking on both this and _The Written Front_ in the very near future.

* * *

_July 23, 1881_

_11:42 p.m._

Spent the better part of this morning in futile research at the British Museum. Old Abrams, apparently thrilled beyond belief to see his unofficial prize pupil return to the reading-nest after a smallish hiatus, blathered onward for near an hour while I searched through the pamphlets and papers he located for me. After the third time of his inquiring if I'd yet found a 'proper lady to court' I finally sent him slack-jawed with the entirely sincere reply that if he could locate one who was both brilliant, sensible, and undemonstrative, I might think about it.

The dear old fellow shuffled off soon after to accost another unsuspecting youth (obviously a botanical sciences student, with more money than brains and a fondness for poor company that shall soon gain him the unwanted attentions of London's finest gambling-dens), muttering all the while about my 'unsociable habits' and other such nonsense. Pah. I have no time for trifles.

Nor, it appeared, had I time for further reading after I had gleaned what little I could from the cut-and-dried reports, the only existing documents regarding the end of our recent Afghan Campaign. By the time I had returned the texts, fended off Abrams's hour-long dissertation on his most recent bibliophilic fixation, and inhaled a sandwich on my way across town, I'd only just time to catch my brother on his luncheon break at Whitehall.

The pop-eyed secretary Mycroft keeps around solely because the young ninny's uncle is a prominent member of the House of Lords fairly wailed with dismay to see me, and I took keen pleasure in horrifying the prim fellow by scuffing the polished woodwork in the outer office and then lighting up a forbidden cigarette.

The resultant screech drew my brother away from his (oversized) meal, and after receiving one look that spelled death by dismemberment I plopped the cigarette in the secretary's frantically wringing hands and followed the massive shadow into the inner sanctum.

"You really must stop harassing the poor fellow," brother mine sighed, ponderously lowering himself back into his chair and dismissing the other secretary, who cast me a dark look and retreated like the obedient automaton he is.

"Why?" I asked, in the true petulant fashion accorded universally to younger siblings.

Years of inundation to my moods enabled him to ignore the inquiry, and by extension, me. After three minutes and forty-one seconds of chewing on his cold beef, he finally glanced up, looking disappointed to find I had not given up and taken myself off to some more dangerous locale.

"What is it you want, then?" he grumped, washing the last of his luncheon down with a glass of water. "Do not tell me you are behind on your rent _again_."

"Hardly," I rejoined sourly. "Not that it would break your heart to see me thrown out on my ear by my redoubtable landlady."

"I am more concerned with it breaking my _pocketbook_, but that is a moot point. What then?"

"I need some information, brother."

"Regarding…?" The question was delivered with (well-deserved) caution, and I infused my answer with that wheedling tone that usually got me anything I wanted as a child – and many times as an adult.

"The Afghan conflict," I replied, and saw his eyebrows stretch, groping for his receding hairline and not quite locating it. "Specifically the last few months of it."

Brother mine regarded me for a moment in that peculiarly fond-and-exasperated fashion – the only resemblance he bears to our departed mother – before beginning to methodically scrawl his signature (if the distorted hieroglyphic can be so termed; personally it looks more like someone dipped a spider in indigo and squashed it with the blotter) across a sheaf of legal documents.

After thirty-two and one-half seconds of his pen skittering across the foolscap, he finally continued. "This would not happen to have anything to do with the fact that your new friend is a survivor of that war, would it?"

"He is not my _friend_, and you know jolly well it _does_," I muttered, propping my feet up on the opposite chair before receiving a screech from the secretary, who apparently had materialized with a tea-tray (is the man not capable of working without some form of sustenance?) and was removing the luncheon-wrapper.

"I shan't even begin to expound on the illogical paradox that is that statement," Mycroft sighed, shoving the papers into a file folder and tossing it into the mountain of such folders at his left.

"Good. Now, what can you tell me? Apparently the entire British government seems to be in a conspiracy to give the press no more than bald facts which even I can discern are most likely not completely true."

"Rubbish," he returned, waving a flabby hand in my vicinity. "Only you, Sherlock, would attempt to make a conspiracy out of something so trivial as a lack of information for the sake of public morale. Added to the fact that there were precious few survivors to give accurate accounts," he added after a ponderous moment in which I contemplated poking him with his pen-nib to restart the enormous brain.

"You still have not answered the question, Mycroft."

My elder sibling leant backward in his chair (it was a wonder the poor thing did not do more than gasp a whimpering protest) and regarded me quizzically. "There is not much to tell, Sherlock, of the battle of Maiwand. That is the event to which you are referring, in that infernally roundabout way, is it not? I thought as much."

I deigned not to satisfy him with a reaction beyond a slight nod, and after a perfected eye-roll he continued.

And the tale he told was a sordid one indeed. I truly had not considered the ramifications of my own simple deductions with which I startled the Doctor upon our first meeting, until being confronted with bare, unpleasant statistics to accompany them. It is no wonder the poor fellow cannot sleep of nights – who could? I have a set of demons all my own, and yet I am forced to admit to the truth that even my worst nightmares could never compare with his harsh-lived reality.

Mycroft's statistics, pulled from that impossibly mathematical mind of his, also explain why the man has no friends save those annoying young medicos he occasionally goes to luncheon with; the regiment was simply decimated, and there the matter lies, quite literally. I have wondered how so amiable a man (seriously, the fellow charms people everywhere he goes, and that unaware, confound his good nature) could have no acquaintances or family in London; this explains it. And the logical addendum to that fact would be the conclusion that what comrades he did have, he no longer does.

Quite possibly that is why he is so chary of making new acquaintances; I can well believe the fear of loss is ingrained quite deep by this point in time despite the consciousness of civilian life.

Unpleasant thoughts, to say the least, were swirling about my mind by the time Mycroft ejected me from his office two minutes before some stodgy government official descended (the secretary was weeping and wailing about my smudging the tile).

My pensive mood only deepened when I returned home; Watson was moody, unresponsive, and otherwise in the depths of a black mood that only I could match. The man scarcely spoke three words over dinner, and then only to hand me the salt and pepper, and took himself off to his room just after as if fleeing from my presence – or more likely my deductive abilities. And yet, he has not retired for the night even now, close upon midnight – for I can hear that infernal, uneven pacing above my head even as I write this entry.

I know now the source of the depression, if it can be called that, and in the absence of a more pressing problem – or a more intriguing one – I find my mind inexplicably drawn to the issues at hand. Awareness of the man's reasons for his actions – and sleepless nights – is one thing.

Deciding which course of counter-action to take is quite another, and is fully a six-pipe problem. As the Doctor and Mrs. Hudson will hardly appreciate my smoking that much this late at night, however, I shall leave the matter until tomorrow.

And then it shall have my undivided attention until I have reached a solution I deem fitting.


	16. July 24, 1881

**I would like to thank _Taluliaka_ and _Mittie Moo_ (both of whom have amazing fics of their own; please check them out) in particular, for some badly-needed encouragement recently regarding this story and its prequel. My bookverse Holmes muse was murdered and buried by the Ritchie film (no offense to anyone who loved it; it's just not helped me at all), and so yes, it has been over a year since I updated this, almost two years since I wrote anything serious in the Holmes fandom. Thank you to both of you, as well as everyone who has encouraged me to take up the mantle again - I truly appreciate both your kind words and the time you took to compose them and encourage me in this.**

**Hopefully, I can keep this muse going now. :) Wish me luck!**

* * *

_July 24, 1881_  
_1:10 p.m._

I realized upon my pre-breakfast ruminations (the Doctor was apparently still dead to the world when I arose at my punctual half-past seven) that I had strung the phalanges of Cromwell's left hand incorrectly and so spent an hour and a half unwiring the bones and placing them in a neat pile on the table, and then re-wiring them correctly.

I had just finished when a small thunderstorm arrived in the person of one rather cranky half-pay army surgeon.

I had re-attached the damaged appendage to the wrist, and now waved the arm at him cheerily (he is not at all a lover of early mornings, and it amuses me to no end the number of ways he can inform me quite politely or otherwise to leave him the deuce alone). "_Good _morning," I chirped, and was pleased to see him glare squint-eyed at me.

"Ugh," was his succinct response as he flopped himself into the chair opposite, looking rather disgruntled that no coffee was as yet in evidence.

I looked up as Mrs. Hudson pushed the morning papers under the door; perhaps in them there would be something to amuse me more than annoying my fellow-lodger to the point of his contemplating my premature death in exciting new medical methods. I rose from my seat.

"Hold this, there's a good fellow?" I asked with a grin, placing the humerus of the arm into his limp hand and moving past him to the door.

"Yes, of cour – _Holmes_!" There was a chalky clatter as his sleep-muddled brain awoke to the fact that he was holding a skeletal arm, the fingers dangling like some ghoulish wind-chime, and he promptly dropped the thing on the rug. "That is disgusting!"

"Oh, come now, Doctor," I reproached in my best wounded tone, "I am quite certain you have seen and held worse in your career or even in your medical student days."

"Yes, but not before breakfast, and not without the rest of the skeleton attached," he grumbled, rolling the arm with the toe of his slipper under the sideboard whereupon it gave out a small clacketing until the bones settled.

I only laughed at him, which served to put him in an even less cheerful mood (if that is possible), and took my papers over to the unlit fireplace out of habit, where I retrieved my before-breakfast pipe and lit it, tossing the spent match into the grate.

"_Must _you endeavour to choke the entire 220 block with that infernal stuff, all before nine of a morning?"

"_Must_ you be so infernally _cranky_, also before nine of a morning?"

That did not go over so well, I must admit; not my finest rejoinder, and not my most polite.

Certainly one of the most amusing ensuing snipe-fests, however. When the Doctor is not entirely himself, he is at his most dangerous – and most interesting. I do wonder at times if Stamford had not some odd wager with a colleague at the time of our introduction, upon who would first murder whom or drive the other to Bedlam within six months.

Seven months and counting; at least that is a record in my acquaintance.

A plate of ham and eggs and two cups of coffee later, my flatmate was looking a bit more human, though the pinched look hidden well within his eyes bespoke of a restless night even more so than the other, less obvious, physical indications of such. That added to the lingering aura of depression which seemed to permeate the flat (through no fault or effort of mine, for once) only served to in turn set me quite on edge, so that before noon we were both snappish and irritable, and the temperature hovering at a despicable upper-ninety degrees.

As the clock struck half-past noon, I could stand it no longer, and was about to suggest something so ridiculously domestic as a walk in the park – or, heaven forbid, feeding the ducks or something equally inane – when a telegram was delivered to me, from (will wonders never cease) Inspector Gregson. Apparently the statue vandalism in Kensington Gardens has developed some 'unique features,' which he feels may interest me.

Now, to take my life in my hands and see if I can manage to drag a cranky army physician along with me; if I am to successfully navigate the murky waters of Gregson's peculiar brand of thinking, I shall likely require moral support. And a bodyguard.

_1:40 p.m_.

There is nothing quite like a _post-prandium_ altercation with the Doctor on the way to a case, about whether or not Gregson even _has _a brain in his head, or if it merely has evaporated in the heat like water off the streets.

_July 25, 1881_  
_2:17 a.m._

I believe that the next time Gregson calls me out upon a case which requires night vigil over some flower-studded walkways and ghastly pseudo-Roman architecture, I shall explain in great detail why answering his summons would not be beneficial to either of our healths. Had it not been for the doctor and some remarkably fine action with that walking-stick of his, the vandals would have escaped in the shrubbery, all because that idiot of a Scotland Yarder chased them _in the wrong direction _down the path.

I wonder at times how the man gets his boots upon the correct feet of a morning.

The case itself was a simple one, despite the lateness of the hour; this was caused more by the necessity of waiting until the summer sun had set rather than difficulty in deducing the next target area of the vandals, who have apparently changed from merely defacing statues to chipping bits and pieces off them (including fingers and noses, unfortunately for the poor statuettes in the third rose garden near our rendezvous tonight). A petty case, and frankly not worth my attention; the pattern in the defacing was not difficult to deduce, nor was the fact that the vandals were simply reselling small chunks of marble to various shops around. Nevertheless, it did serve as an evening's diversion, and for that I am grateful.

The Doctor was somewhat surprised that I asked for his company, asking warily and frankly if I had an ulterior motive for inviting him along. Upon my reply, to the effect that he dealt far better with idiocy than I did, he actually laughed and agreed to come along. We'd no way of knowing, naturally, that the two-hour session with Gregson would turn into a night's vigil among rose bushes and disgusting specimens of the London insect population – only to have the brilliance of Scotland Yard chase the vandals up the path instead of down, toward my location with Constable Bryce; the Doctor was safely out of the way of running footsteps and Gregson was puffing along behind the youths when I realized they were heading the other direction.

Watson, bless him, had merely looked annoyed at the Inspector's ineptitude, and had tossed his walking stick into the legs of the foremost vandal as they rushed past, sending the other two down in a flailing heap over their fallen comrade. Gregson did manage to finally catch up and took the men into custody, pointedly ignoring my remark that a piece of polished walnut did a cleaner job of catching our quarry than his police force.

I received a firm elbow in the ribs for that last from the Doctor, though he has no room to talk as he shamelessly laughed with me about the whole thing in the cab on our way home, and was told privately that I can be 'extremely rude' at times and that I will 'alienate any and all of the population' if I do not change my methods of dealing with people.

Bah. Genius has no time for trivialities, including societal courtesy. If people wish to have me, they shall simply accept the entire package; if they cannot, I have no desire to interact with them.

_3:00 a.m._

Why can that man not sleep for more than two hours without nightmares? I have read what there is upon the subject of his experiences, and if I possess one gift it is that of imagination…so what is it that he is seeing, night after night up there?

More importantly, why the deuce am _I_ unable to sleep, aware of what is transpiring in the bedroom above?


	17. July 26, 1881

**Title:** Agreement and Disputation (17/?)  
**Fandom:** Sherlock Holmes (ACD-verse)  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary: ** _"Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking." _-George Eliot. A budding friendship, seen through the private diary of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Sequel to _Worth & Choice._  
**A/N:** I'm not even going to attempt the impossible; namely, to apologise for leaving this for over a year, and a year before that...anyway. If anyone's even still reading this story, here you are. I would recommend you re-read from the beginning and read the prequel, Worth and Choice, if need be, to catch up.

* * *

_July 26, 1881_

_5:25 p.m._

I am not a gentleman, I daresay, who requires constant companionship and relentless inconsequential chatter to entertain himself on a systematic basis. In childhood I was ostracised by my less-intelligent and therefore unworthy peers, and outside my brother's occasional benevolence I found myself without the millstone of _esprit de corps_ 'round my neck up to and throughout young adulthood. With the sole exception of Victor Trevor in my transitory university days (and his brief acquaintance was tolerated only because the fellow was so keenly persistent and the situation at home so unpleasant, that summer I visited his estate), no one has ever expressed more than a passing interest in remaining in close contact with my caustic personality for longer than a few weeks at maximum.

_Entre nous_, this makes one Dr. John H. Watson something of an anomaly, and all scientists know well that radical factors will destroy the most carefully calculated equations, and can shake established theories to their very foundations.

I do not much appreciate my brain-attic reforming itself to accommodate a new section which will have no real bearing on my work, but no scientist is quite able to control a radical factor, and I cannot place the blame fully with myself. Being forced to delete certain things in order to incorporate the new space is beyond my control, and I can only presume that the items deleted are not of comparative importance to me or my work. No doubt my selective ignorance will shock Watson to no end, but as he is to blame he has no right to be affronted at my lack of societal niceties or knowledge of celestial bodies and their movements.

But to return to my initial sentiment – I am not a man who requires the continual presence of others in order to function in my capacity of the foremost criminal investigator of our time; nor do I need reaffirmation of what I know to be true: namely, that I _am_ the aforesaid foremost criminal investigator, one who is unmatched in his field.

It therefore mystifies me somewhat, to realise that the endorsement of this curious and altogether bewildering individual with whom I currently reside is far weightier to me than all the public accolades I could accrue through judicial press and official sanction. _L'art pour l'art_, and yet after all this time to hear imbeciles such as Lestrade, Gregson, and co. receive the credit for my off-stage puppeteering becomes tedious, and somewhat disenchanting.

This last case is no exception to this unfortunate rule; due to Gregson's bungling of the trap two nights ago, the gang of statue-defacers nearly escaped, but for the timely reaction of myself and my ex-military companion. And yet, the papers yesterday morning and this only sing the praises of a select few idiots, saying nothing of me and my cerebral prowess which brought us to the successful conclusion. I freely admit to being slightly annoyed by the floridity of the praise lavished upon an undeserving Scotland Yard inspector, while I was forced to resort to almost physical violence to extract my fee from the aforementioned imbecile – a poor thanks indeed, for a sweltering night's work and four hours of deductive investigation.

The Doctor appeared to concur with me, for I had the dubious pleasure of seeing his formidable temper _detonate_ (there is no more descriptive word choice for the action), for the first time in my acquaintance with him - and over something so utterly innocuous as the biased newspaper article about the case this morning. Entirely speechless at the vehemence of his righteous indignation on my behalf, I was unable (meaning I did not dare to so much as blink) to do more than sit back and watch the pyrotechnics with a unequivocal fascination that most likely did not aid matters once he had exhausted himself and wound down into a sheepish apology for his display of temper.

It is no wonder the Doctor survived one of the bloodiest and most tragic battles of our recent inglorious history; surely no Ghazi or even the most foolhardy of enemy soldiers would be so irrational as to step within striking distance of that particular army doctor when he is in a temper. Certainly it would be a more valiant man than I who would brave such a thing, and I am no coward.

But this observation brings me to my real purpose in this desultory journalism; chronicling for future reference the events and consequences of this particular day's significance, if I am to again safely navigate the drama this time next year.

The source of his frustration was not, as it at first glance appeared over breakfast, the news article about Gregson's supposed accomplishments; this ridiculously overcompensatory reaction was merely an indication of a far more volcanic drama erupting – no doubt one which has been mounting in pressure for the past week or so.

I was cautious enough to ride out said eruption, rather than trying to stem the flow – only a fool attempts the impossible and extremely dangerous – because I had spent yesterday in avoiding the man for the sole purpose of discovering what, precisely, was fueling this bizarre combination of depressive mood swings and unaccountable irritability.

Upon re-reading, this sounds rather like the chronicle of a hopeless busybody, but in the absence of a stimulating case I believe my curiosity can be quite reasonably excused.

And I had my answer, late yesterday afternoon, after another near-fruitless visit to my brother and the conclusion of my research into the material gathered from the British Library, among a few other sources. Recent history, especially war history, is certainly not an extensive portion of my considerable knowledge; it has no relevance on criminal performance, and frankly is of no interest to me whatsoever except where my flat-mate is concerned.

Obviously, a knowledge of his background is of use, if for no other reason than to avoid becoming collateral damage by doing or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time (a more likely occurrence than not, given my singular gift for complete frankness). It is an essential sacrifice of brain-attic space, simply by virtue of domestic necessity; nothing more.

I discovered late last afternoon that this date, _July 26_, one year ago today, was the date of that fatal battle of Maiwand, the one in which my fellow-lodger nearly lost his life and/or limb during what was by all accounts (sparse though they are) one of the worst defeats in British military history. Indeed, after perusing what information I could discover regarding the casualties, I find that even I am not quite able to remain detached from the chilling knowledge that the scales of Fate could so easily – so very easily! – have tipped the opposite direction, depriving me of this unique opportunity to become acquainted with one of the least irritating individuals I shall ever hope to meet. Certainly, I would not be sitting where I am, in my comfortable lodgings, today, had whatever Providence permits atrocities like the Afghan conflict to continue, not decided to smile unaccountably upon me one year ago today.

But this is not about me and my pathetic ruminations regarding the existence of a deity or universal driving force; rather, this entry is to document my actions of today; solely for research purposes, as it has been rather a success despite my not knowing precisely how to go about diffusing a small volcanic eruption in our placid little Baker Street rooms.

As previously mentioned, the Doctor exploded over a most excellent breakfast from our estimable landlady (which enabled me to at least have the enjoyment of a well-cooked omelette whilst being subjected to a _force majeure_ in the person of my thunderous flat-mate), over the fairly harmless, if a bit inflammatory, article in the _Standard_ about the Kensington Gardens vandalism case.

Somewhat astonished at the outburst, I wisely chose the better part of valour and continued munching my toast in silence, nodding meekly at appropriate intervals, while the man ranted and raved like a positive lunatic about the injustice of 'incompetence claiming public accolade over [my] hard work,' both physical and cerebral.

(I freely admit to never having had a champion of my own before, as my work stands on its own merit and needs none – but despite the admittedly redundant defense I found it was not entirely disagreeable, having someone indignant on my behalf over what has become an all-too-common slight of my considerable abilities. Certainly this novelty will bear further examination at a later, more convenient, time.)

Finally, the thunder and lightning ceased as quickly as a literal storm does this time of year, and the Doctor fell silent, scowling hard enough at his plate to set the poor kippers afire with the incendiary glower. I cautiously pushed the coffee urn toward his clenched right hand, and soon received a mutter of thanks, coupled with a blushing expression of regret for the outburst.

There was no need for an apology, as it had been a most instructive (and entertaining) discourse, and I said so with more amusement than any other quality. This earned me another look of mortification from my sheepish companion.

"I did mention I had a terrible temper, when we first met," he murmured, red-faced and hiding behind his coffee.

"Indeed, and I took the liberty of doubting your word for the first few months; I have since become…enlightened," I replied dryly.

A rueful chuckle was the only response I received, though I did not sense any real amusement in the man. I must tread lightly, as I knew by now that any indication on my part that I was aware of the fellow's ghastly anniversary would be rebuffed as both unwelcome and invasive. As I am quite competent at accidentally being so intrusive under my own steam, I was not about to willingly commit such a domestic _faux pas_.

About an hour later, I was saved from having to invent a strategy (which would most likely have been suspicious at best, disastrous at worst, as I am by no means adept in the art of compassionate distraction) by the very welcome arrival of a letter from a prospective client. A case I could have – and indeed had – solved before I was finished reading the postscript, but it would serve.

Watson was not appreciative of being almost forcibly dragged out into a sweltering heat just before noon, but I was not about to permit him to remain moping indoors and suffer in some ridiculously misplaced sense of self-flagellation over _surviving_ when so many of his comrades had not. I do not profess to _understand_ such illogical emotionalism – but I do recognise its effects, now that I have shared close quarters with them for over a half-year.

Some might have tried to discuss the matter with the Doctor; I, conversely, knew better. Not only would the intrusion upon his thoughts be unwelcome and considered decidedly offensive, but more importantly there would be no possible way I should know what to say. The probability simply lay in my making things an hundred times worse than they already were; and I am not so imprudent as to go in against such probabilities in the odd hope that a miracle might occur despite my clumsiness. No, the only avenue open to me which I could conceivably pull off was that of distraction – physical and mental, to overcome the emotional.

Granted, I had not anticipated the placid little case (that of an unfaithful wife, the most mundane and lackluster of all domestic cases) turning into a double attempted murder which resulted in both of us taking an impromptu plunge into the Thames to escape being knifed and involuntarily dumped into said river – but then Mycroft always did say I was an over-achiever.

More later this evening, as Watson is practically beating down my bedroom door informing me that I _am_ going to eat today or else face his formidable wrath (again), and I had better have changed out of those wet things because he has other responsibilities than attending to my illness due to my own disregard for personal health, etc., etc.

As I am by no means a fool (last I skipped three meals in a row, he held my favourite pipe for ransom), I shall return.

_11:41 p.m_.

Thus suitably refortified (I have never in my life eaten such regular meals as I have since taking up residence in this house) and having just now performed my expected duties satisfactorily in the matter of luring my flatmate out of his sulk and expressing my support for his unpleasant memories, I shall be able to return tomorrow to my own self-centric world of study and work without any niggling of remorse whatsoever (a substantial achievement).

I believe I surprised both of us with my tact before turning in for the evening. A not-unpleasant feeling, the knowledge that I have succeeded in effectively navigating those extremely treacherous waters!

Watson is neither stupid nor unobservant; this much I learned to my chagrin during the first week of our acquaintance. He therefore no doubt had his suspicions, as to my needing to bring him with on a case which became obvious before long that I had already solved before leaving Baker Street. Our unexpectedly violent conclusion to the business (the unfaithful wife was evidently taking up with one of the worst opium-smugglers in London at the present time), ending in an adrenaline-fueled chase through the docks and a disgustingly filthy plunge into the Thames (though the temperature outdoors was certainly hot enough that the dip itself was not altogether unpleasant), was merely an added bonus on my projected five hours of distraction.

I was found out, as I had half-expected to be, though the Doctor did not appear to be offended. Rather, he merely looked thankful and said so, as we sat before the unlit fireplace, finishing the bottle of claret I had opened with our evening meal.

"I know what you have been trying to do, Holmes," said he, after a long fortifying draught from his glass. "And…your efforts are appreciated."

"Yes, well." I waved off his obviously uncomfortable attempts at gratitude, as I would be a poor acquaintance to do otherwise. "I presumed you did not wish to talk about the events."

"You presumed correctly." He stared into the dark hearth, unseeing. "I do enough reliving by myself to last a lifetime, without being forced to expose myself in front of another."

Said reliving was no doubt happening at night, judging by his poor sleeping habits the last week, but I was not so ungentlemanly as to mention the fact.

However I was fast approaching the end of my self-imposed tether, as I am no expert (and have no aspiration to be one) on matters of the emotions, especially those which I have no hope of understanding – such as the Doctor's feelings about his experiences. I therefore bowed from the stage while I had hopes of retaining my own saturnine image, bidding him a good-night as I placed my empty glass on the sideboard for Mrs. Hudson to remove later.

And yet I paused in the open doorway of my bedroom. I had today successfully addressed the matter of his depressive listlessness, and the morose lack of purpose – but it did not take observation or deduction to perceive from his current expression that I had done nothing to address the unfounded guilt which obviously preyed upon him still. A basic understanding of human psychology is necessary to my profession, and while I do not see the logic in self-castigation over the very human instinct to survive, I do nonetheless recognise the signs.

Well, then; one can never say Sherlock Holmes is disinclined to attempt the solution of a problem, however complex said problem might be.

"For what it is worth to you, Watson," I mentioned quietly, as I paused in the doorway, and I was surprised at my honesty, "I for one am…quite grateful, that the casualty toll did not include your name in its regrettably high number. Good-night, my dear fellow."

I saw just before the door closed his unaccountably astonished expression, which was a clear sign of victory – for it had totally eclipsed the guilt that had clouded his gaze all evening.

I therefore thoroughly declare this day's experiment a _coup de maître_.

Am I hopelessly arrogant, if I admit to being inordinately pleased with myself?


End file.
